


Carry You Home

by Aleatory



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Acephobia, Artist Gabriel, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexual Sam, Break Up, Dating, Hand Jobs, Insecure Gabriel, Janitor Gabriel, Lawyer Sam Winchester, Lucky Accidents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:39:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3798784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aleatory/pseuds/Aleatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam just wants to get through his last year of law school. The last thing he needs on his plate is a sexuality crisis, but after he (literally) runs into a gorgeous janitor and starts falling in love, it's inevitable. He just never expected it to be this complicated - or for his life to be on the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry You Home

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been about four months in the making, and I'm so, so happy to finally reveal it.  
> A lot of asexual fics I've read are short, and focus mainly on one character coming out to the other, but that's often not how it goes down. Sam doesn't know he's asexual for a good portion of the story, but I tried my best to integrate a lot of narratives that I felt would make his sexuality easy to spot from the get-go. Gabriel is supportive, but he has his own issues and identity that he struggles with.  
> I also need to warn everyone up front- there is some major acephobia in this fic (not from Gabriel) and mentions of attempts to "fix" Sam. This could step over the lines of dub-con for some, but nothing is explicit, and while he's uncomfortable, Sam gives full permission.  
> There is also some sexual content that Sam is comfortable with near the end of the fic. This section is more explicit, but it's also easily skippable.
> 
> Finally, huge shoutout to my awesome betas, devourabaddon and aberdeentam, who made this piece infinitely better by catching my dumb mistakes and, in the case of aberdeentam, fixing my awkward wording and suggesting the best additions. Thank you both so much. 
> 
> Art (by the amazing domimiso!) can be found: http://gandocaloca.livejournal.com/768.html

There is no dignity among college students at midterm.  Sam Winchester is no exception.  Technically, he’s a law student in his last year, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has a paper due in five days and is in desperate need of a certain reference book. The school library doesn’t have it, neither of the two libraries in town have it, and the few places offering it online are charging an arm, a leg, his soul, and his lunch money for the next month. He’d be willing to trade, at this point, but he probably needs both arms for writing the paper.

 He hasn’t eaten real food since Sunday. This is what education does to a man.

His saving grace in this particular situation turns out to be the library of the local community college, Chemeketa, which has an old copy in the basement, if the web is to be believed. He doesn’t have a student ID, obviously, but he’s willing to beg, plead, and puppy eyes his way into having a look, maybe taking some photocopies. No shame. It’s midterm.

Sam gets off the bus and walks to the campus, stepping on the wet orange leaves still plastered to the sidewalk from yesterday’s rain.  Salem is full of trees, and this time of year, they’re all in their full glory. Most of them are bright blazes of color above the campus lights and below the dark sky, with only a few starting to drop their leaves. The broad windows of Chemeketa’s modern buildings glow welcomingly in the twilight.

He finds the library easily, the sign on the door letting him know he’s got only fifteen minutes, and slips inside, pulling his jacket a little tighter against the gust from the door. It’s a chilly October this year, bound to lead to a frigid winter. Sam doesn’t mind- he’s always liked autumn, with the crisp cool underlying scent of oncoming cold layered under the warmer notes of receding summer. And yeah, he’s a sucker for apple season.

Sam wanders upstairs, past the desk, and straight for the research section, then pauses to get his bearings and work out where this place would keep law books. “Well hey there, you’re an unfamiliar face.” Sam’s attention is jerked from the shelves by the preppy voice of the librarian behind the desk. The… very cute librarian, Sam notices, taking in her long brown curls and tiny smile. He doesn’t have time for cute librarians, but a man can _notice._

“Yeah, you got me. I go to Willamette law. You recognize every face on campus by now?” This must be one of the full-time staff. No student could possibly be this perky this time of year. The few he’d passed on campus were muttering to themselves and clutching coffee cups like they’d found the Holy Grail.

“Nah, I’d just remember a gorgeous face like yours.” The librarian leans forward, propping herself on her elbows and brushing her dark brown locks back behind her ear. “Willamette, huh? What can I help you with, Mr. Law School?”

The come-on is unexpected, and Sam feels a little more warmth rush to his already red-with-cold face. “Just a book for my midterm paper. We, ah, still have those in law school.” He’s getting “Sam-weird” again, as Dean calls it. “Midterm papers, I mean. Not books.” _Horrific pause._ “We have books too, I mean just-” Sam clears his throat. “It’s here, according to your site.” Sam slides her the slip of paper with the book’s name and reference number.

She gives it a glance, and returns her gaze to Sam. “I could point you in the right direction.”

“Cool. That’s great, yeah.”

As stupid as he must sound, she giggles flirtatiously. “Or I could help you out. We’re closing soon enough, no one will miss me.” She looks up at him, clearly waiting for him to answer- and accept or reject her advances.

The best option, really, is to say no. Just get the directions, get the book, go work on his paper. Good-ol’ responsible, ‘staying in _again?’_ Sammy. But at the same time, an image appears in his mind of himself and this cute brunette chatting between bookshelves, talking about everything from books to the weather to the café down the street that incidentally neither of them has been to yet. He’s intending to get food anyway, and right now nothing sounds as good as company with dinner. “I think you better show me the way,” Sam says with a little smile. “I could get lost.”

“It’s not that big a place,” she says teasingly, sliding out from behind the desk.

“I get distracted pretty easily,” Sam says as he follows her down an aisle. She stops short, glancing at him before she pulls a book off the shelf.

“I can’t let you check it out, since you’re not a student, and we’re closing in a few. But… I could check it out for you, on my faculty card.”

“Could you do that?” Sam asks, perhaps a little too eagerly - strike that, way too eagerly - and she giggles again.

“Yeah. I could definitely do that.” She turns to him, clutching the book over her chest. “I’m gonna need a name and number. Writing “Book’s with the hot guy from Willamette” on a post-it isn’t gonna cut it.”

“Sam,” he says with a grin, holding out his hand.

She accepts it. “Madison.” The handshake lingers. “So, were you thinking of using that book right away, Sam?” Her voice has a certain drag to it when she says his name.

“I haven’t eaten since Sunday,” Sam states. This sentence might be driven by the pang of hunger that’s just gripped at his gut again.

Madison outright laughs this time. “Oh my _god,_ you weren’t kidding about midterms in law school!”

“So I’m heading to one of the cafés down the street, and if you wanted to… join me?

Madison smiles coyly. “I can’t leave the building for another twenty minutes.”

“Oh.” Sam leans casually against one of the bookshelves at his side. It lurches a little, and Sam immediately rights himself, wanting desperately not to overturn a row of shelves. Please, dear God, let him not ruin everything now- wrecking a library while attempting to be ‘smooth’ is not how he wants this to end. “I mean, I’m definitely not opposed to waiting,” Sam adds as they start back towards the desk.

“Oh, we could do a lot in twenty minutes,” Madison purrs, and steps a little closer than Sam was expecting. He has a personal bubble, and she’s in it.

“Do you have anything to, I don’t know, shelve? Or… I could help, I…” Sam suddenly finds himself backed against the desk, attempting to maintain his bubble but acting casual about it, as Madison walks closer.

Her hand slips behind him to place the book he’d come  for on the desk. “Absolutely nothing to do.”

“Nothing to do?” Her hand is resting on his hip now, and Sam definitely doesn’t like it. But he’d liked talking to her, he’d liked the way her curls tucked so neatly behind her ears, why the hell was he getting so worked up about what she was suggesting? Nerves?

“And a lot of things I’d like to do with you, Sam.” Her hand slides a little lower, and Sam snaps. He instinctively shoves her hand away and jolts sideways, leaving Madison standing, confused, in front of a vaguely Sam-shaped space.

“Sorry.” Sam chokes out. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you meant…”

“No.” Madison composes herself, as easily as trading one mask for another. “I’m sorry, I came on too strong. I thought you were interested.”

“I am!” Sam rushes. God, he’s going to let everything slip away from him, just like he always does, because he’s too fucking nervous and dorky and messed up to take the relationship any further than kid stuff-

“Look, I got your signal.” Madison reaches behind him again, and he _flinches_. God, who does that? “Book’s yours, bring it back in two weeks, okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam says numbly. “Thanks. I’ll have it back.”

She gives him a very professional smile, but disappointment is heavy in her voice. “Have a nice night.”

 

* * *

As he walks back across campus, Sam can feel a queasy knot of something like shame in his stomach, and there’s a tightness in his chest and a flush in his face that he knows has to do with the familiar worry he’s reopened- that something was _wrong_ with him. How the hell is he supposed to go through life normally this way, freaking out and shoving the poor girl away because he hadn’t picked up on what she was suggesting. You just decline and move on, idiot.

Since it’s so chilly, Sam’s cutting through an academic building, clutching the book to his chest, head down, walking quickly and miserably and-

He rounds a corner and slams into a janitor’s cart, not quite tumbling it, but sending cleaning bottles tumbling to the floor and spilling a bucket of rags. To his credit, he manages to keep the book tucked under one arm as momentum and high center of gravity send him toppling clumsily. _Shit._ Sam hopes to god that there’s no one around, because he’s just made some poor janitor’s day much worse.  _Great going, Winchester. Just piss off every single employee of a school you don’t even go to._ The upside, Sam thinks, is that no one seems to have seen his mishap.

“Whoa, hey, are you alright?” _And too late, upside is gone._ There are tears prickling behind his eyelids, and not because the fall had hurt. Sure, his tailbone’s gonna be sore a few days, but after the disastrous incident in the library, he feels like the whole world is gazing at him in mingled disappointment and pity. _Poor boy, can’t even kiss a girl or walk down a hallway. What a fucking failure._

He takes the offered hand without even looking at its owner, blinking down at his feet and trying to clear the hurt from his face as whoever’s helping him babbles on. “That was quite a spill, kiddo. Need me to call the health center for you?”

“Thanks,” Sam mutters, rubbing forcefully at his eye with his other hand, “but I’m alright.”

Sam lets the guy haul him up before he glances at the guy  helping him. He’s short, with a sweep of sandy brown hair that curls at the back of his neck, and looks like the kind of guy who’d cheekily tell you the floor’s wet _after_ you fell on your ass, but then help you back up anyway. And judging from his attire, it’s not a student or teacher who’s helping him off the floor, but the janitor whose shit he’d just crashed into.

Swallowing down his guilt, Sam offers sheepishly, “I’m sorry about-” he glances at the scattered cleaning supplies on the other side of the cart. “I’ll help.”

The janitor releases his hand and claps him on the arm. “It’s midterm. You’ve got enough to handle. Go sleep or something.” His eyes meet Sam’s, warm and encouraging beneath his amusement, and Sam finds himself, for just a split second, drinking in the details of his face- the barely visible dimples, the thin, soft lips.

Sam catches himself. “Thank you,” he stammers, voice sounding much more disbelieving than he’d meant it to. He keeps smiling in the janitor’s direction awkwardly as he starts down the hall, and thus catches his foot on one wheel of the cart.

He flails impressively and keeps himself upright, and intends to keep walking, face forward, hiding his blush, when he hears a snort of laughter from behind him. “Hey kiddo?”

Sam turns, and the janitor gives him this grin, like he’s already satisfied with the joke he hasn’t yet made. “There’s a cart in the hall, I’d watch out.”

What a little shit. Sam likes him. He grins with begrudging amusement and flips the janitor off as he walks away.

 

* * *

Sam’s first girlfriend was named Amy. She was fifteen and he was sixteen, and they met because she was taking advanced bio-chem with the juniors.

She’d introduced herself with _“Hey, I’m Amy, I’m a sophomore, and I like dead people.”_ A titter had ran through the room, and Amy had looked mortified. _“I mean, I like to study dead people.”_ Sam had caught her eye from the front row and given her an encouraging smile as she walked to her seat. Afterwards, she’d introduced herself properly, thanked Sam for the moral support, and asked if he’d like to be study buddies.

Amy hadn’t needed a study buddy. Amy was the smartest girl Sam had ever met - actually, the smartest _anyone_ Sam had ever met. She had, however, needed a friend. Sam understood about being an outsider- he’d moved around a lot, as a kid, and his dad didn’t exactly encourage him to get out. Amy had a strict mother and an obsessive interest in corpses.

They got along splendidly. They’d convinced Amy’s mother they were “studying,” and spent time doing everything from reading to playing Dean’s Gameboy, and discussing everything from science to school gossip to their futures. He and Amy weren’t normal, but he’d always been happy to spend time with her. She was both his girlfriend and his best friend.

She’d told him early on that she wasn’t ready for sex, that she wanted a serious adult relationship first. The way she’d said it had been so unlike her, so tense and stilted, and Sam had simply said “of course.” The idea of sex was one that had barely occurred to him. Sex was something for people older than him, for Dean and Cassie, for… someone else. “I think I want to wait until I’m married,” he’d said.

They broke up when Sam went off to college, but they’d parted ways as friends. They still talk. She’s happily married, expecting a baby, and working in a corpse lab. Sam’s proud.

 

* * *

Once midterms are over, Sam finds time to actually do things like read for fun and go for coffee and spend time with his brother. Dean has returned from helping their cousin Jo move out just in time to convince Sam to spend break “on the road”.  This is Dean-speak for “in a different junky motel every night,” but Dean’s heart is set on getting out of “Rainville, USA” for the week, and Sam doesn’t want to hold him back. Dean only lives in Oregon because of him anyway.  Sam doesn’t pay a thing for that apartment. It’s not the nicest place in the world, but they each have their own rooms, and their other apartment mates, Garth and Benny, have quickly gone from strangers to friends.

Back in Salem, before classes pick up, Sam finds time for a few extra hours at work. He works at a local kennel, which comes with the pros of walking dogs and petting dogs and the cons of cleaning dog cages and smelling like a dog twenty-four seven. Still, he reflected, as he scrubbed out stacks of water bowls, the work isn’t as awful as it sometimes feels, or he wouldn’t do it. As busy as he is, he loves dogs, and the shelter always needs more people who are willing to play with the lonely pups.

God, someday he’d have a dog. A nice big dog, perfect for runs in the park and playing fetch and the kind of horseplay he used to get up to with Bones, a dog he’d fostered when he lived off campus senior year. Bones was now happily placed in a forever home, but Sam missed the good times. His then-girlfriend Jess had accused him of loving that dog more than he loved her. She may have been right.

The extra cash bonus he gets for bathing services normally goes towards things like textbooks and food, but today it’s going towards coffee. The little shop a few blocks north of school is his favorite place to go, even though they’re moderately busy in the mornings; the warmly painted interior and the sweet smells of the bakery always put him in a good mood. He has an early morning class on Wednesdays, and for today, the first class this side of break, he’s going to be caffeinated and ready to go. Fall road tripping has fucked up his sleep schedule more than he’d like to admit.

Sam’s turning away from the counter with his warm apple cinnamon macchiato and an intense refusal to be judged for his love of apple cinnamon flavored things when he spots a familiar gray uniform in line amongst the business casual and college sweats.  Shit. A quick glance up at his face confirms that it is in fact the same dimpled, blond janitor who’d picked him up off the floor last week.  Okay, maybe he can casually slip past, take a sip of coffee to cover his face a little.  After their last run in, Sam’s not sure he wants to be seen by this guy ever again, and avoidance is his only option until the cart incident is just a hazy memory. Sam lifts his to-go cup to his lips as he walks past the line, only to remember through experience what he should have known at the start: coffee is hot. Sam yelps and splutters, letting coffee trickle down his chin and catching the attention of not only janitor guy, but _every single person in line._

Sam’s life is over. He is going to die of embarrassment right here. It feels like half the line is waiting on him to break the awkward pause - say something, do something - and thankfully, janitor guy does it for him. “Hey, uh, hate to be the bearer of obvious news, but…”

“Coffee is hot,” Sam deadpans. “Should have seen that one coming.” He puts a little more sarcasm in his voice than he intends.

Janitor guy steps out of line and swings a dark gray tote off his shoulder, rummaging through it and finally offering Sam a water bottle, the droplets of water on the outside telling him that the insides are still cold. Sam takes it without question- it had been very hot coffee, and if getting poisoned by some weirdo with a water bottle of cyanide was his fate, he wouldn’t fight it.

“Better?”

Sam nods. “Thanks. I was being… I was a moron,” he scrapes out, tongue still numb from first the heat and then the cold. “I saw you in the line and got distracted - ”  That sounds wrong, and Sam stops himself, unsure of how to explain his avoidance technique without sounding like a horrible human being. 

Janitor’s eyebrows rise a little, and he gives Sam a teasing smile. “Distracting? I’m flattered.”

Sam’s breath rushes out in an ‘oh’ before he can stop it - because that wasn’t at _all_ what he’d meant, and he was getting himself deeper and deeper entangled in this explanation.  But it’s also hitting him that he doesn’t _want_ to say that he wasn’t attracted, because he’s slowly realizing, standing there, holding hot coffee in one hand and cold water in the other, that the man in front of him is stunning.

That’s probably the least straight thing Sam has ever thought in his life.  While he has frequently questioned his own sexuality, he has always come back around to straight. After all, he likes girls, he’s had girlfriends, and the idea of sex with a  man is unappealing - stressful, even. But all his conclusions are suddenly flying out the window as this gorgeous new piece of evidence stares up at him, brown eyes glowing and warm.  Sam isn’t quite sure what he wants to do with this man, but damn, he wants to do a lot of it.

“Y’get lost?” the man asks, snapping Sam out of his sudden sexual epiphany. To his credit, it’s not the coffee he drops this time when he startles. He frantically snatches the water bottle off the floor and hands it back, face warm as he mumbles an apology.  “You’re not a Chemeketa kid, are you,” Janitor guy states.

“Willamette,” Sam confirms.

“Good.” The janitor tucks the bottle into his tote and turns back to Sam. “Because I don’t hit on students, and I just wanted to tell you - you’re as hot as  that coffee.”

The morning has taken an exciting turn.  Sam can feel his face getting warmer, and he knows he must be standing there sputtering, but his mind has gone entirely blank of appropriate responses to flirting. He’s never been good at flirting, but _anything_ has to be better than his current deer-in-the-headlights look.  He doesn’t want to ruin this.  He really, really doesn’t want to ruin everything the way he did  just a few weeks ago with Madison from the library.

“Maybe hotter.”  The janitor finishes with a wink, and starts to turn away, back to the line.

His brain kicks back into action. Get his number, Sam, get his _number._ Sam scrambles to pull his phone from his jeans pocket,  and catches a glimpse of the time.  _Jesus fuck how is it this late?  He has a class.  He has to be out of this coffee shop two minutes ago._ Sam jogs towards the door, and as he passes the end of the line, reaches out with his empty hand and catches the janitor’s shoulder. “Hey, I have to run, early class, but I’d really like to run into you again sometime. Hopefully not literally,” Sam adds sheepishly, “but I make no promises.”

His response is a beaming smile. “I’m usually at the Pasture Park on Sunday afternoons, if you wanna meet up.”

Heart still in his throat (and tongue still numb), Sam stretches his hand forward, offering a handshake that turns more into a hand hold. “Sam Winchester.”

“Gabriel Novak.” And god if breaking eye contact to leave the shop and go to class isn’t the hardest thing he’s ever had to do - and yes, that includes the paper from two weeks ago.  Senior thesis was harder, but it’s _senior thesis,_ that doesn’t count.

Everything makes sense now, Sam realizes as he settles into his seat in the lecture hall, thirty seconds before his the professor strolls in.  He’s gay.  The thought is such a relief, settling in his chest and clearing away all the confusion and guilt he’d been feeling. He isn’t attracted to women, and he wouldn’t have to try to make things work out with a girl just because he felt it was what he should do; he could end up happy and fulfilled with a guy, and he’d be... well, not normal, but close to it. Problems solved, Sam was gay.

He still wasn’t sure about the whole ‘sex with dudes’ thing, but he could chalk that up to growing up with straight people, right?  To thinking he was straight and channeling all his thoughts of the future towards women?  The sex part would show up once he was more comfortable with the idea. Sam’s sure of it.

 

* * *

Jessica Moore was his first ‘real’ girlfriend, or so everyone said. What he and Amy had done was just kid stuff- quick pecks in the backs of movie theaters, holding hands in school hallways. But he and Jess met when she was twenty-one and he was twenty, and suddenly Sam was playing an entirely different game.

 This sudden jump reminded him of the transition from T-ball to rubberball when he’d been a kid - in the T-ball league, there had been a rubber stand - a tee - holding the ball up for him to hit. He’d dropped out for a while because of another move to another town that pulled him out midseason. When he rejoined, his age meant he was in rubberball, and suddenly the ball was being hurdled towards him, and he had to hit it in midair, and Sam couldn’t keep it all straight. He’d run to third base instead of first, colliding with the kid already heading home and costing them the game.

Jessica was perfect. She was outgoing, and sweet, friendly, and wickedly intelligent.  She shared his affinity for bad puns, and was the best listener in the world.  They started out slow, kissing each other goodnight and holding hands as they walked across campus, but then the next thing he knew, Jess was slipping her tongue in his mouth - something he didn’t object to, but never saw coming. Everyone - and he meant _everyone_ \- thought they were screwing.  It slipped out of the mouths of friends and off the tongue of his advisor, and he didn’t know how to correct them.

From there, it was Jess herself, starting to get curious about when exactly she could fuck him.  She hadn’t been a virgin, or close to it - between her previous boyfriends, she’d had strings of one night stands.  It didn’t bother Sam at all, and she didn’t try to hide it.  But she’d wanted him, in the same way as she’d had those other men, and he didn’t feel ready by any means.

He made an attempt.  God, did he ever make the attempt. He’d stripped her, skimming his hands over her skin, and she’d made several pleasured sounds, gasps of his name.  It felt so theatrical, so staged, and so awful - like the dialogue of a softcore porno he’d walked in on Dean watching.  He’d laughed then, at the cheesy way she’d said “ _Miiiiiike”_ when this derpy looking guy had grabbed her breast, but with Jess, he wasn’t laughing.  He was freaking out.

Jessica was a smart girl.  She’d dropped her happy purrs and looked up at him accusingly.  “You are the unsexiest hot person in the world, Sam.”

He’d floundered helplessly, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry? I… I don’t know-”

The harsh tone dropped from her voice, she’d asked softly, “You’re not enjoying this at all, are you?”

“I am!”  He’d protested. He was nervous, and he hadn’t enjoyed her noises or even taking off her clothes, but he had liked touching her, he really had.

She’d shifted a little, pressing their hips tight.  “You’re not hard.  Sam, we should just stop for now.” She’d rolled away.

He’d been so relieved and so guilty.  “No, no... I can do it.”

“You’re looking me in the eye!”

Sam still remembers the way he’d blinked at her in confusion.

“My tits are _right here,”_ she’d stated, “and you’re looking me in the eye.”

“Fuck, Jess, I’ve seen them before, you know I think you’re beautiful.”  That was true.  Jess’ tits were nice.  Not the most amazing thing in the world, not like some of his guy friends and Charlie described tits, but he couldn’t say he didn’t like them.

“It’s not about what you think of me, Sam.”  She’d sighed, reaching off the bed and picking her shirt off the floor. “I’m gonna head back to my room, okay?”

Sam had nodded, shame welling up in this throat and behind his eyes and burning through his face. She’d kissed his forehead. Like he was a kid.

The open relationship had been his idea.  Jess had asked him over and over if he was sure about it, but he was.  Jess liked sex, but he’d known she would still love him, even if some other dude’s dick was what got her off.  She’d decided that the only bad part was that a few people were convinced she was cheating, and he’d hugged her, told her he agreed.

He was happy in their relationship, and he did hate that people would think that about Jess, that they would call her _slut_ behind her back. He had expected the worst part to be the knowledge that she was with another guy, but really, it had nothing to do with Jess and other men.  The worst part had been the feeling of failure.  He felt broken, and he felt guilty.

For once in his life, he didn’t tell Jess how he felt.

 

* * *

The wind has died down, but the temperature has gone down with it, and it’s much colder today than it has any right to be in Oregon.  Sam tugs his coat tighter - he’s had to upgrade.  His thin canvas jacket just wasn’t cutting it.

He doubts Gabriel is out today, although the hope of running into him is what has driven Sam from his warm apartment and his warm room and his warm bed.  No one would be out here without good reason, and…

Sam’s thoughts trail off as he spies what he thinks might be the reason - dog.  _Dogs_ with an _s_.  There are two small dogs chasing each other in circles at the other end of Bush’s Pasture Park, and standing near them, hands jammed in his pockets, is someone who looks suspiciously the right amount of short to be Gabriel.

If he wasn’t interested before, he is now.  Sam is a terrible person who once went back to a girl’s apartment and listened to her talk for three hours just so he could pet her German Shepherd. He wasn’t above exploiting Gabriel’s interest if it meant petting dogs.

“Didn’t think I’d run into you,” Sam comments as he walks over.  Gabriel startles a little, clearly not expecting Sam.  One arm flies up and thuds against Sam’s chest, but then he turns and realizes he’s not being mugged at the dog park.

“Sam!”  His face lights up.  “You’ve gotta stop running into me, kiddo, one of us is gonna get seriously hurt.”  Seeing him in jeans and a button down is weird, after all the instances with the uniform, but Sam likes what he can see.  Gabriel has a fair amount of muscle, but there’s a bit of a stomach under his shirt, and his skin is dusted with tiny light freckles.

“I’m fine,” Sam assures him.  “These are your dogs?”

He can see Gabriel’s chest visibly puff out with pride.  “Yep.”  He pops the ‘p’.  “The terrier mutt is Bucky, and the blonde is Carly.  I call ‘em Buckethead and Carl though, most of the time.”

Sam laughs. “Hey, I get it.  I had a dog I called Bonehead half the time.”

“Carly’s friendly, if you wanna pet her.  Buck’s a little shy, but he won’t bite or anything.”  Gabriel gestures with his head, having put both gloveless hands back in his pockets, and Sam happily kneels down to scratch Carly’s ears.  She’s well cared for, obviously, and Bucky is perhaps a little too well-cared for, with a layer of pudge under his fur.

“Such a nice girl,” Sam murmurs as she wags her stump of a tail eagerly under his gentle strokes.  “Is she a Corgi?”

“Mix.  She’s a shelter pup.  Getting up there in years, though.  Got her from the shelter, the one out on Turner.  It’s just a gamble out of town, and they know what they’re doing there, hire real competent people.”

Sam’s face splits into a grin.  “I work there, so I’m glad to hear I’m competent.”

Gabriel returns the smile, still eyeing Sam almost affectionately.  “I kinda had the idea you’d be a dog person, so I’m glad I’m right.”

“What other ideas did you have about me?”  Sam asks teasingly.

“Tall, cute, and dog lover is all I really need, to be honest,” Gabriel teases right back.

“That first one isn’t an idea, it’s a fact.”  Sam stands up to demonstrate his point, crowding in a little to emphasize exactly how much of a height advantage he has. This may also have been a ploy to get closer, as his teeny attraction has exploded into a full-blown crush. “I’ve gotta have a good nine inches on you.”

“I’m not that short, law boy,” Gabriel bumps his shoulder against Sam’s, voice low and smoky, and makes no move to step away. They stand there in the park, their breath coming in soft curls of cloud, looking at the dogs and stealing glances at each other like they’re both watching the cute kid in class out of the corners of their eyes.

“Look, maybe I’m getting wrong signals here,” Gabriel finally starts, “but do you wanna get coffee or something?  I’ll buy.” 

“You don’t have to…” Sam protests, but Gabriel pushes his hand down before he can even raise it.

“Save the objections for courtrooms.  I’m buying you coffee.”  His hand tenses on Sam’s.  “If you’re interested, I mean.”

“Yeah.  Interested, yeah.”  Sam gently wraps his fingers around the hand still on his, feeling it relax in his grip.  Gabriel has no idea exactly how interested Sam is, which is probably good, because Sam’s spent the last few days thinking about meeting up and maybe making out;  he’d found his thoughts drifting to brown eyes and terrible jokes far too often. He wants to know what Gabriel’s kisses taste like.  Is that moving too fast?

“Can I walk you home?  Or is that too corny for the first date?”  Gabriel squeezes his hand, then lets it go to pick up two leashes off a nearby bench.  “That was way too corny.  Pretend I never asked.”

“Are you kidding?”  Sam watches as Gabriel coaxes Buckethead over and leashes him up.  “That’s exactly the right amount of corny.  I’m a good few blocks east of here, though, I’ll warn you.”

“I’m mostly north, but we can take the long way home.  God knows Buck and I need the exercise.”  He hefts Carly up and tucks her under his arm, holding Bucky’s leash in his other hand.

Sam mutters, “Let me,” and takes the Corgi out from under Gabriel’s arm, and she’s mellow enough to enjoy the change in scenery.  Without any hesitation, Sam wraps his other arm around Gabriel’s shoulders, and they walk.  Everything seems less cold with the two of them side by side, and they talk about dogs, and upcoming winter, and Sam’s tiny-ass apartment.  It feels like far shorter than a handful of blocks before they’re outside Sam’s apartment building, the dogs sniffing around the grass, numbers already exchanged, and Sam and Gabriel stand there, unsure how to say goodbye when they aren’t even dating yet.

They’ve hit a lull in the conversation, and Sam finally can’t stand his curiosity anymore. He steps closer, loving the way Gabriel tilts his head back to keep his eyes locked with Sam’s.  Gabriel’s hands leave his pockets and tentatively reach outwards, stopping just short of his fingers brushing Sam’s, and Sam can feel his heart thumping and the beat of his pulse in his own fingertips and the rush of (nervous, ecstatic) thoughts through his head. Gabriel gives him a little half smile, and Sam finally whispers, “Do you mind if…”, and Gabriel responds by reaching up and pulling Sam in by his coat lapels.

Hypothesis: Kissing guys is just as wonderful as kissing girls.

Results: Gabriel is warm, the breath from his nose ghosting over Sam’s upper lip as Gabriel teases gently at the lower one with chapped lips.  Sam can feel the tiniest brush of Gabriel’s stubble against his own jaw, and the fact that he can still feel those fists, clinging to his coat, is oddly pleasing.  He can feel his own heart racing as Gabriel tilts his head a little, brushing Sam’s lip with both his as he pulls back slowly, only to lean forward for more.  All Sam can smell is the cold and something faintly like oak and lemon and wine and dog, and he doesn’t need anything more.

Conclusion: Hypothesis is _so fucking correct._

Gabriel steps back, and wow, Sam has found something harder to do than release eye contact.  This one... this one might be harder than senior thesis.  “God, Sam, buy me a drink first,” Gabriel gasps, using the last remaining breath in his lungs to make a terrible joke.

Sam can’t stop the ridiculous smile spreading across his face, and he finds he doesn’t want to.  “I’m sorry, I thought someone was gonna buy _me_ coffee?”

Gabriel makes a face, drops another quick kiss on his lips, and goes to collect his dogs.  “I’ll text you about Saturday, yeah?”

Sam nods stupidly.

 

* * *

Garth had been looking out the window - because hey, there were random dogs in the yard - and he’d seen everything.  Garth had also told everyone - and by everyone, Sam means the other two people who live in his apartment.  When he walks in the door, both Dean and Benny are holding back laughter and asking how his “walk” went.

“What?  It was fine.”

“A little more than fine, I’d say, sugar,”  Benny laughs at his confusion, wandering back into the kitchen to keep stirring dinner.  “Who’s the lucky blonde?”

Sam shrugs.  He hadn’t been intending to come out to his brother, or his apartment mates, until he was positive, but he guesses the fact that he’d deeply enjoyed that kiss confirmed it.   “A guy I ran into at the coffee shop near school.”

The look of shock on Dean’s face makes it all worth it.  “A dude?”  Benny’s head pokes around the doorway of the kitchen, Dean’s expression mirrored on his face.

Only Garth seems unfazed.  “You taking him out?”

Sam nods.  “Technically, he’s insisted on taking me out, but…”

Across the room, Dean is swallowing down his surprise.  “Well, I didn’t know you swung that way, Sammy, but ah, I’m glad you like him.”

“You gonna bring him in and introduce him one of these days?”  Benny asks.  “Bess has been around, and Dean brings back a new girl every few weeks or so-”

“Damn right I do,” Dean asserts.

Shrugging his coat off, Sam starts down the hall to his room.  “Maybe.  We’ve only really been out once.”

“I’d love to meet him!”  Garth calls after him.  Garth is probably the most supportive person Sam’s met in a long time.  Sam could probably say he was dating an ex-hitman and Garth would call it adorable and give him kudos on seeing the good in people when most people didn’t.

The idea of developing his relationship with Gabriel further, bringing him back to meet his brother - he likes it.  Maybe there’s hope for him after all.

 

* * *

Gabriel does text.

_*hey so i know we talked about saturday but i get off early friday if that works*_

_*Friday night is late for coffee,*_ Sam responds, but suddenly wonders if it sounds too much like a decline. _*We could do drinks? Dinner?*_

_*hell i’ll take you for a movie too*_ Quickly followed by, _*whole shebang.*_

_*Movie first? So we have something to discuss over dinner?*_

_*ah but sam.  i’m a sucker for movie candy*_

Sam laughs.  Gabriel is exactly the kind of guy Sam would suspect of having a major sweet tooth.  _*Sounds like a plan. I pick the restaurant, you pick the movie?*_

_*dealio*_

 

* * *

Gabriel drives and Sam directs him, refusing to tell him where they’re going until they pull into the parking lot.  Gabriel finally stops calling him a shady, secretive jerk when he sees that Sam has directed them to a fondue restaurant and instead calls him a beautiful, beautiful human being.

They spend way too long over fondue, telling each other about their childhoods and travel experiences and, in Sam’s case, classes.  Gabriel’s long out of school, but he drags up some old stories, which he precedes with a sarcastic “Back in _my_ day…” that sends Sam into a fit of laughter.  Sam gets chocolate in his hair, and Gabriel comments that it was really the only way he could be improved.  The movie start time has come and gone by the time they leave the restaurant.

“If you don’t mind, we could go to yours and watch something?”  Sam suggests.  If he gets to hold a dog tonight, it’ll just be a bonus.  “I’d offer, but I don’t think you want to meet all my apartment mates and my brother just yet.”

Gabriel shudders.  “God no.  Your brother’s going to call me some unsavory names, I’m sure.”

“Come on, he’s not that awful,” Sam protests with a laugh, swinging into the passenger seat.

“Yeah, but he’d have a point.  I’m too old for you, and he’d call me on it right away.”

Sam sits quiet for a minute, a strange, unexplainable anger suddenly rising in his chest.  “I’m not a kid.”

“Oh, I know,” Gabriel assures him.  “But your brother - Dean was it?  He might think I’m taking advantage of you or something.”

“Come on, you can’t have that many years on me.  How old are you?”

“It’s not polite to ask a lady her age, Sam.”  Gabriel shifts the car into gear.  “Thirty-fucking-four.”

Ten years, Sam thinks.  But will that matter when he and Gabriel are in their seventies and eighties at the nursing home together?  Hell no.  Sam puts his hand on top of the gearshift, over Gabriel’s.  “I’m not a kid.”  He says it reassuringly this time, reminding Gabriel that no matter their ages, no matter where they are in life, they’re both adults.  He doesn’t want to be infantilized, never again.  He’s spent too long kicking himself for not wanting to go past kid stuff.

Gabriel looks over at him, catching his eye, and nods, just once, as though letting Sam know he understands.  “Can I still call you kiddo?”

Sam snorts, sliding his hand back into his lap.  “Could I stop you?”

They watch a cheesy old action mystery on Gabriel’s couch, a dog in each of their laps, talking softly and laughing about special effects.  Sam offers to walk home alone, but Gabriel insists on giving him a ride back because it’s getting way too cold.  Parked outside his apartment, Sam initiates the kiss again, and they linger there, leaning across the center console, fingers teasing over each other’s hands, breathing slow and easy.  “I’ve really been wanting to do that,” Sam confesses.  “All yesterday, I kept thinking about how great your lips were going to be.”

Gabriel lets out a soft breath. “God, Sam…”

“And that,” Sam decides, giving Gabriel another quick, soft kiss as he opens the door, “is what ‘way too corny for the first date’ sounds like.”  He slides out of Gabriel’s car.  “G’night.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel looks like he wants to say something else, but can’t find the words.  “Good night, Sam.”

 

* * *

Sam texts in twenty minutes. _*I sent you the link to that actress we couldn’t figure out.*_   Pause. _*Maybe this is poor form, but I had fun and we should meet up again this week.*_ He doesn’t want to sound desperate, but the last thing he wants to do is let Gabriel think he’s not interested when he is, he’s so, _so_ interested.

Gabriel is fascinating, in the best way.  Sam could listen to him talk forever.  Gabriel’s a dog lover, and judging from his living room and his reaction to fondue, an art lover and a food lover.  Gabriel has nothing but respect for him.  Gabriel’s not the sweetest person in the world,, but at least he freely admits it when he’s being a dick.  His jokes are stupid and his opinions are intelligent and his _eyes._ Sam lays there on his back on his bed in the dark, willing the phone to text back.

* _i’d love to.*_ Fuck.  Yes.  Sam clutches the phone to his chest for a few seconds before he starts typing out his reply.  He’s interrupted by the phone vibrating a second time.  * _you actually rly like hanging out with me.*_

There’s an undertone of surprise there that Sam doesn’t quite know how to handle.  Of course he likes hanging out, that’s why they’re _dating._ He backspaces and types, _*Why else would I be dating you?*_

_*idk*_ comes quick, a snap response that doesn’t tell the full story.  Sam waits.  Within thirty seconds, the first text is followed by, * _for an easy fuck i guess*_

Sam stares. The idea of someone taking another person out solely to get in their pants wasn’t a new one, really, but somehow it had slipped his mind entirely.  The fact that Gabriel’s first instinct is to assume he’s just an _easy fuck_ stings a little.  He doesn’t quite know how to respond, and sits for a second staring at that word, fuck.

Gabriel texts again. * _its ok if thats all youre going for. more than willing, just let me know where we stand. a little surprised you didnt go for it tonight.*_

God, no wonder Gabriel had seemed so confused - Sam had suggested they go back to the empty apartment to “watch a movie” and then made exactly _zero_ moves.  Sam doesn’t know how the implications of that hadn’t even pinged in his mind, but now Gabriel seems to think he’s a _rejected_ easy fuck.  He needs to clarify, and clarify now.  Sam slowly taps out, _*No way.  I’m hoping to get a boyfriend out of this exchange.*_

There’s a long wait between his text and the response.  _*saaaaam youre making me blush*_ Somehow he can hear the mock protest and enjoyment in that one text, and he smiles, settles down into his covers.  _*good to hear we’re on the same page tho gorgeous ;)*_

Of course Gabriel would text winky faces.  It’s gonna ruin Sam’s sense of humor forever, but he doesn’t mind.  “Boyfriend”is Gabriel’s end goal too, and that’s what matters.  They text late into the night, making new plans and just talking, and Sam falls asleep texting back.

 

* * *

Gabriel takes him to a huge bookstore on their next date, and Sam didn’t know it was possible to fall in love this quickly.  “You took me for fondue, so I gotta one up you somehow,” Gabriel teases as Sam looks around the store, wonderstruck.

Gabriel’s favorites are few, as he doesn’t read as much as he’d like to (“Every time I plan on reading, somehow Netflix is calling me.  Totally not my fault,”) but Sam appreciates his taste in books.  “You’re not even a huge reader, and you brought me here?”

Gabriel shrugs.  “You strike me as a book nerd.”

“That would be correct,” Sam grins.  They browse a bit and then read, and Sam can’t help but notice Gabriel glancing at him over the top of his magazine, something akin to awe in his eyes.  The last thing Sam wants is to be put on a pedestal, but the way Gabriel teases him about tripping on his shoes on the way out makes him think that they’ll be okay.  Whatever they have is working beautifully.

Dean and Benny don’t leave him alone about it over supper, and don’t even try to hide their amusement as Garth pries the details of his new love interest from him.  “For Christ’s sake, you two, you act like I’m marrying him!” Sam protests, but he can’t help the tiny smile creeping across his lips. He has a pile of homework for the evening, but he’s still buzzing with excitement from the kiss they’d exchanged earlier that day, and the plans for their next meetup  “I’ve been out with him, like, three times.”

“Exactly,” Dean says with a little smirk.  “And now he’s invited you over.  For, uh, dinner.”

“Okay, so it’s _kinda_ serious.”  Sam pushes himself away from the table and clears his plate.  Dean and Benny exchange another amused glance.  “Fuck _off_ , you two,” Sam grins.

 

* * *

Dean lets him borrow the Impala that weekend to drive over, and when he gets there, Gabriel has their food nearly ready.  He has been bragging about his cooking skills for a few days now in text messages, and Sam can’t wait to see him make good on his words.

A few weeks ago, he’d lounged around Gabriel’s living room, but the kitchen is new territory, and Sam pauses in the doorway to take it in.  The living room is comfy, simple, full of artwork and dog toys, but the kitchen feels more like home than anywhere he’s been in a long time.  It’s obvious right away that the plain, off-white countertops and appliances are the apartment’s, because Gabriel’s things are full of color, perhaps even a little too much.  The wall above the stove has been painted bright red, and all the picture frames and knick knacks on the walls are wild with hand-painted patterns.  The table top has a more subtle, faded pattern on the top; the light over the stove is on, but the dining space is dim.

Gabriel is making parmesan cheddar alfredo, which Sam points out is basically the adult version of macaroni and cheese.  He receives in return a bitchface that he recognizes distinctly as one of his own.  “Look, I even made you vegetables.”

“Technically, peas are a fruit.”

“But they’re _green!_ ” Gabriel protests, prodding at the tiny spheres with a wooden fork.  “Health food, just for you, so you’ll shut your whore mouth about my love of macaroni and cheese.”

Sam laughs.  “I never said I didn’t love it too.”  He drops a kiss on the top of Gabriel’s head. “I brought a pie.”

“Oo, what kind?” Gabriel sets the technically-a-fruit peas on the table and returns to stirring the pasta sauce.

“Peanut butter silk.”

Gabriel practically moans. “Oh my god, Sam, you’re killing me.”

Sam grins innocently. “Does it help that I made it from scratch?”

The spoon drops from Gabriel’s hand and into the pasta sauce.  “Marry me.  I’ve seen enough, marry me right here in this kitchen.”

“I dunno,” Sam teases, looking around.  “We might wanna clean up dinner before we do anything quite so drastic.”

“The noodles can officiate,” Gabriel offers, turning his back on the stove to face Sam.

“No, they can’t,” Sam explains patiently, “because I’m going to eat them.”  He reaches around Gabriel and clicks the stove off.  “Show me where you keep dishes and I’ll set?”

He doesn’t let Gabriel answer, because he’s in the perfect spot for a kiss and indulges.  “Mmm, second left cupboard,” Gabriel hums as Sam tries to pull back.  He’s finding it difficult to do so, however, as Gabriel has one finger hooked in his left belt loop.  “If you want candles, you can check the alcove behind the table.”

“You have- mmm- candles?” Gabriel pulls him down for another quick but eager kiss mid sentence.

“I have a good deal of exciting things.  I’m an exciting kind of guy, despite what outward appearance may tell you.”  He lets go of Sam’s jeans and turns back to the stove.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam doesn’t move from where he’s standing, instead pressing himself forward against Gabriel’s back, wrapping his arms around Gabriel’s chest.  He can feel every one of Gabriel’s breaths this way, including the tiny gasp of surprise his action gets.

“You know.”  Gabriel fishes the spoon back out of the sauce and drops it in the sink.  “I’m kind of average.  I clean for a living.  Nothing special, but I promise I’m fun.”

He tries to move the noodles to the sink, but Sam doesn’t let him. “I don’t know about that.  I think you’re pretty special.”

“Sam,” Gabriel breathes, a little laugh of disbelief creeping into his voice.  “You just met me.”

“I know.”  Sam cranes his neck a little, planting a kiss on Gabriel’s cheek.  “And I think you’re pretty special.”

Gabriel sets the pasta back on the stove, and without any warning, spins himself around in Sam’s arms and kisses him, eagerly and sloppily. One of his legs lifts, knee rubbing against Sam’s leg until Sam gets the hint and slides his arms lower to pick up Gabriel by his thighs, letting Gabriel cling, desperate and needy, his breath warm against Sam’s mouth as they exchange open-mouthed, affectionate, fervent kisses.

“God, Sam, you amaze me,” Gabriel pants out as Sam shifts him a little higher to plant kisses on the underside of his jaw.

“You just met me,” Sam murmurs teasingly.  “Like a month ago.”

“Shut up.” Gabriel huffs.  “Do you wanna maybe forget about dinner?”

“Hnn?”

“My bedroom is a dozen steps away.”

The words are breathed into his mussed hair, and it takes a moment before the full connotation clicks.  He’d come over for dinner on a Saturday night, after several dates.  Gabriel was expecting sex.  There’s a pause first, when everything is still perfect, when he’s just happy to be here with his boyfriend, and then everything melts away into a whirl of fear and dread.  And like bathwater swirling around a drain, Sam can physically feel the night about to go downhill from there.

“You’re gonna have to get past the dogs in the hall, and there’s an easel on the bed, but _God,_ Sam, I… I want to do this now,” Gabriel says, and Sam’s head barely registers because he’s focusing on remembering to breathe and  not dropping Gabriel, and also the fact that he’s pretty sure the bulge pressed against his stomach is Gabriel’s erection.

Fuck.  Right.  Dude parts.  Sam swallows down his apprehension.  He can do this.  He can, ah… they haven’t discussed who’s gonna go where, but he’ll do it.  He can explain that he’s a virgin, and Gabriel will surely understand, give him plenty of time to work out what he’s doing and get over his nerves-

“Sam?”  The tone of Gabriel’s voice has changed.  “Everything alright, sweetheart?  You seem a little lost in space.”  He shifts his knees a little, letting Sam put him back on the floor.

Sam can’t do it.  He can’t fake his way through this whole experience, not when he cares so much about Gabriel, and not when Gabriel wants this to be meaningful and enjoyable for both of them.  “I’m just… I’m really tired tonight.”  That’s a lie too, but somehow, it feels less profane than pretending to be into it when he’s not.  “As great as that sounds,” _lie,_ “I kinda just want to eat, maybe watch a movie with you,” n _ot a lie._   “Is next time okay?”

“That is perfectly okay.”  Gabriel presses his forehead against Sam’s shoulder for a moment, as though he’s trying to get his fill of contact before they return to dinner and conversation.  And now that his panic is receding, Sam would have been happy to hold him there forever.

Sam expects awkwardness over dinner, but they slip easily back into the dynamic that’s slowly developing: listening intently, storytelling, and mocking each other mercilessly.  They end up playing Scrabble and watching the first five episodes of a show called Librarians that Gabriel is in love with.  As they start the sixth, Gabriel leans in closer and asks if Sam wants to stay the night.

“What?”

“Not sex,” Gabriel adds.  “Just… you shouldn’t drive sleepy, and I have a really big bed.”  He looks pleadingly up at Sam, and it’s suddenly clear where Buck learned his begging techniques.  “I’ll put the dogs in the kitchen for the night.”

“Sure.  Sounds nice.”

Gabriel lends him sleep pants that come down to a few inches above his ankle, and after getting one look at him, Gabriel bursts into side-splitting laughter.  “Where’s the flood, Noah?”

“Shut _up!”_ Sam protests, throwing a pillow across the room at him.  “It’s not my fault you’re not full sized yet.”

“You watch  your mouth, Sam, or I’ll make you sleep on the couch with the dogs.”

“Except I like your dogs.”

“But you like me more, right?”  Gabriel challenges.

Sam strokes his chin thoughtfully.  “Yeah, I guess, a little.”

He gets hit in the side of the face by the same pillow he threw moments earlier.

As Gabriel had promised, he’s a cuddler, and quickly nestles himself up against Sam’s chest.  Sam falls asleep first, with Gabriel’s warm arm draped over his body, the soft cotton of his boyfriend’s t-shirt under his hands, his legs tangled with Gabriel’s under the fleece of the blanket.  Gabriel gets cold in the night, but Sam doesn’t need as much warmth, and ends up pushing some of the bedclothes onto Gabriel when he wakes up in the middle of the night.  Settling back in with Gabriel next to him, though, makes it one of the best nights of his life.

Gabriel cooks breakfast because he “needs to show that he can cook more than macaroni and cheese,” and Sam has to admit: his omelets are delicious.  Ten out of ten, would sleep here again.

He heads out the door with a promise to text later in the week, and pulls his boyfriend in for one more quick kiss.  Gabriel says softly, “I just wanted to tell you that… no one’s ever slept with me without first _sleeping_ with me, you know?”

“No one?”  Sam nuzzles his cheek against the top of Gabriel’s head, something he’s quickly starting to love.  There are advantages to being the tall one.  “They don’t know what they’re missing out on.”

“Thank you for staying,” is all Gabriel says in response.

 

* * *

It ends up being a phone call.

They’ve already discussed the their weeks extensively, and Sam suggests Gabriel come over to his apartment sometime this week.

“Come on, you can meet my dick roommates, and I’ll cook something for you.”

_“I’m not sure how I feel about your dick having roommates, but-”_

“Oh god.”

_“What are you making me, one, and two- will it be anything like the pie from last weekend?  Because that was amazing.”_

“I can make whatever sounds good,” Sam tells him, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder so he can sort through laundry.

_“Ooo, that is tempting.  But you could cook at mine, right?”_

“I guess,” Sam says, tossing a lone gray sock across the room and missing the sock drawer by a few inches.  “What’s the difference?”

_“Okay, one, I’m pretty sure both my dogs love you more than they love me.  And two, I don’t know if I want to meet your family yet.”_

“Come on, Dean’s gonna like you at least a little, I promise.”

_“I’m not impressive enough to bring home to family, Sam, we’ve been over this.”_

“Well, I’m not dating you in secret, so you’re going to have to get used to the idea eventually.”

Gabriel snorts.  _“Okay fine.  But later.  The third point is that you have roommates and a bed made for sleeping.”_

“Huh?” Sam traipses across the room after the sock.

_“So we can’t get to any of the things I had in mind for you,”_ Gabriel purrs, and Sam’s thoughts come to a dead halt. He abruptly stops in the middle of the room, the memory of promising “next time” the last time Gabriel was asking him to bed coming back, along with a knot of anxiety.

Sam starts forward across the room again, but, distracted, trips on a textbook, his pinky toe taking the brunt of the impact. “Fucking-!”  Sam doesn’t finish his exclamation, hopping on one foot and rubbing his sore toe.

_“A little direct, Sam, but-”_

“I stubbed my toe,” Sam grits out.  “And also I kinda need to talk to you about that.”

_“I’m sorry about your toe.  But go on, hit me.”_

Sam draws a steadying breath, because he suddenly remembers, in vivid detail, the last time he’d told someone he didn’t want sex at all.  Jess had been his first serious girlfriend, but she hadn’t been the last one.  The last one had been Cara.  Much like his relationship with Gabriel, they had started by going out a few times, and Sam had found himself utterly fascinated by her.  Then the question of sex had come up.  Sam hadn’t even thought about trying sex with her - he wanted something akin to what he’d had with Jess, and he told her so.  But her response had been dismally familiar.  _“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but if you really can’t get past kid stuff, it’s not going to work out, with me or with anyone else looking for a serious relationship.  Sorry.”_ She’d walked away and he had never spoken to her again.  Shit.  Sam really doesn’t want Gabriel to think the same thing, but Gabriel’s an adult - of course he wants more than kid stuff.  Sam doesn’t want whatever they have to end like it had with Cara.

_“Hey, Sammo.  Still there?”_

“Yeah, sorry.”  Sam picks up his sock, picking at it idly as he tries to work out exactly how to explain what was wrong with him.  “Look, I… I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t want to sleep with you.  Like, at all.”

The line is dead silent.  “I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t have a great time, just-” Sam sinks onto his bed, still clutching the sock.  “I don’t even want to get naked with you.  I’m sorry.”

_“Oh.”_ Gabriel is unreadable.

“So that’s kind of a no-go, I guess,” Sam mumbles, not sure what direction Gabriel is going to take the conversation.

_“I guess so,”_ Gabriel says bitterly.  Oh no.  Sam definitely knows that bitter is not the angle he’s going for.  He needs to salvage this somehow, remind Gabriel that Sam’s brokenness doesn’t mean he can never get laid ever again.  “I was thinking we could maybe have an open relationship, or something, so that-”

_“Sam.”_ Gabriel sounds tired and stern and scornful.  _“Thanks for the offer, but I’m not going to be your halfway-open anything.”_

Sam swallows.  “All the way or not at all?” he asks, tears starting to well up.  Gabriel doesn’t want his shoddy attempt at a juvenile relationship, and honestly?  Gabriel doesn’t deserve it either.  He deserves someone who’s going to call him gorgeous and then make love to him to prove it.

_“Sorry.”_ The worst part is, Gabriel really does sound sorry.  Not for rejecting the relationship, but more for leaving the potential of what they could have had, what they already did have.

“I get it,” Sam tells him, trying to sound composed.

The line sits quiet.  Sam has a lot of things he wants to say, but none of them fit the silence.  He wants to apologize for being the way he is, and he wants to say that this... whatever they had going... was never casual to him, that he can’t remember the last time he’s cared for someone beyond family like this.  He wants to say that he’s going to miss Gabriel horribly.

_“I should go, I have to take the dogs out.”_ Gabriel’s voice actually wavers, and Sam knows he has to hang up, now, or he’s gonna just blurt out something like-

“Wait, Gabriel, I can… I can try…”

_“Thanks, but I’ll pass on the pity fuck,”_ Gabriel tries to spit it but it comes out choked and hurt.  _“Good night, Sam.”_

He hangs up.  Sam holds the phone to his ear for a long time, straining desperately for some sound from the other side that will indicate Gabriel is clinging as tightly to this as he is. But he knows, in his heart, that Gabriel’s gone.  Gabriel’s not going to cling to this pathetic attempt at a sexless relationship with a broken man.  Sam slowly lets the phone drop to the bed next to him, his arm stiff with holding it so long.  He slowly realizes he’s balled the sock up in his other hand, clenching his fist tight to keep back tears, and he  gently lets it go, and with it, the waterworks.

The sock turns into an impromptu tissue, so it goes back in the dirty laundry a few minutes later.  The worst part is, he doesn’t even know what he’s crying for more - for losing Gabriel, or for losing every single person he’s ever going to care about in the future.  He cries, quiet but hurt, because no one’s ever going to be in love with him being the way he is.

Dean unknowingly brings up Gabriel later that day.  “It, ah, it didn’t work out,” Sam says quietly.  His brother pulls him into a comforting hug that he didn’t know he needed.

“Screw that guy.  We can go out to a bar, and you can just rebound your way over it, okay?”

Sam’s not a big “going out to a bar” kind of person, never has been.  The atmosphere is so charged with something he can’t quite put his finger on.  Everyone there is looking for someone to take home for the night, and Sam’s always been more of a relationship person.  He can almost feel it in the air, the way he doesn’t belong there.  He certainly has no idea how he’s supposed to rebound when he can’t have rebound sex.  Still, Dean’s offering comfort, and a night out drinking might be just what he needs.

 

* * *

Dean leaves with a blond on his arm, and pushes Sam towards a dark-haired woman with the instruction to “go get ‘er, tiger.”

She’s surprisingly easy to get.

Her name is Ruby, and while some tiny voice in the back of his head seems to be deeply against her, he quickly drowns that voice in alcohol.  The way she’s digging at him to tell her more about himself, to open up, reassuring him that she’s the only one who’d listen, would normally strike him as a red flag, but right now he needs a stranger to pour out to, and Ruby is offering herself freely as just that.

By the time Sam’s finished his tale of woe, most of the bar has cleared out, and he’s severely intoxicated.  Probably drunker than he’s ever been in his entire life - and that includes his twenty-first birthday and his Willamette acceptance party.  The part about being broken slips out easily, along with his realization that no one’s ever going to love him, ever.

“Shh,” Ruby coos.  “Trust me, baby.  You’re not a lost cause.”

“M’not?”  Sam asks, slurring the words together.

“I can fix you, Sam.”

Swimming as he is in whiskey, this still makes Sam pause.  That word... “fix.”  He’s not sure he likes it.  He doesn’t think it’s that easy to just change, just like that. It reminds him too much of a guy who’d once been hitting on his friend Charlie, saying he could fix her, make her like men.  It makes him think of a car that Dean had worked on that wouldn’t play cassettes if the brights were on - Dean had been so determined to make it work, despite Sam telling him to let it go and listen to the goddamn radio at night.  Sam doesn’t know how much tinkering he wants anyone to do on his body to make him work.

But he’s desperate.

“I know that’s what you want.  And such a nice body would be a shame to waste,” Ruby purrs, reaching out to touch.  Sam steadies himself, not wanting to flinch the way he had with Madison.  “I can make you lovable, Sam, if you let me.”

Sam draws a steady breath and decides to let her.

 

* * *

Weeks pass and Sam learns to hate the sound of Ruby’s voice.  She’s the person he dreads seeing the most, and he has a constant ache in the pit of his stomach now.  He wants to please her, he really does, but she seems impossible to make happy, and it’s his fault that she isn’t.  Sometimes the rational part of his mind speaks up, reminds him that it can’t be all his fault, that he doesn’t exist to make her happy.  But the continual reminders that she’d be so much happier if only he could _do better_ keep kicking that voice back down.

Sam tries so hard to enjoy her touches instead of being uncomfortable and disgusted by them.  When he takes them with no response, she tells him he’s getting there, getting better, that maybe one day he’ll be normal.  He’s just inexperienced and needs to be warmed up, she reassures.  Sometimes he jerks away or tells her they have to stop, and she scolds, reminding him that this is for his own good.  She calls him frigid and freak but never broken. That one he usually calls himself.

Touching her isn’t a problem, but he still doesn’t like her trailing, invading touches, and he knows that’s _wrong_ , that he’s meant to enjoy them. She wants him to enjoy them. She _wants_ him to like sex. He just doesn’t seem to be responding right.

Sometimes he wishes he could just call Gabriel again and spill.  He still has the number in his phone, and he knows Gabriel wouldn’t hesitate to pick Sam up from wherever he is and comfort him.  But that had been before, when they were dating.  He still wants to call, if only to hear Gabriel’s voice.  He hasn’t told Ruby.  She seems to think he’s over it.

 She brings a man over one evening, Lucian, who terrifies the life out of Sam. Ruby lets Lucian touch him, and Sam’s too afraid to say no.  She praises him when he comes into the man’s hand, shaking and feeling unclean.  “Maybe I’ll let him fuck you, too,” she contemplates.  “I bet you like both genders, huh Sam? Once I fuck you, you could try it out with Lucian?”

Sam shakes his head, distress piercing through the cloud of pleasure and discomfort already in his head.  “Don’t want to.”

“Not yet, you don’t,” she says knowingly. “You’ll get over this.”

Sam doesn’t answer right away, a new, uneasy thought cropping up. Finally he says, “What if I don’t?”

“Of course you will. Sam, everyone likes sex, okay? You just haven’t found what you like yet.”

Despite all the sexual things Ruby tells him about, she often treats him like a kid, makes him out to be stupid.  She says, “Learn something for once,” as she undresses.  Lucian does the same.  Sam watches them fuck, and learns only that he definitely isn’t a voyeur.

Finals come and go.  Balancing the extra workload along with Ruby’s demands isn’t easy, and she calls him selfish when he refuses her company.  So when Ruby wants to see him on Christmas night, he agrees.  He can’t exactly drive over, as the Impala and Dean are at a house party on the other end of Salem, and it’s far too cold out to walk.  No one had told him the west coast would be this frigid.  But hey, no one had told him he’d need to get to some girl’s house just so she could call him frigid.  He’d had no idea this would be his life.  He doesn’t like it.

He calls her, tells her she’ll have to pick him up, shame burning his face as he says the words.

_“Little Sammy need a ride?”_

Sam nods, face still warm, then remembers that it’s a phone.  “Yes.”  It feels like an admission of guilt with her, confessing that he needs something.

_“Down some liquid courage while you wait, Sam.  I want you good and relaxed.”_

Sam tries to reply, “Got it,” but he ends up speaking to a dial tone.  He pockets the phone, crosses the kitchen, and picks up his brother’s whiskey.  He really, really hopes this works.

 

* * *

It’s  so cold.  His body, once pleasantly warm, even flushed with blood from the alcohol, is now quaking with it.  His fingers aren’t loose and clumsy, but numb and clumsy as he tries to pull his phone out of his pocket.  Thankfully, he’d put it in his jeans pocket and not his coat pocket - because he doesn’t have his coat. He’d left it in Ruby’s bedroom when things had gone south and he’d left as fast as he could.

The wind howls around his ears.  Sam shivers, and looks around for a place he can hunker down out of the driving snow.  There’s a bench in the park across the street, and he hopes maybe the trees will block a little of the wind.  He shoves his hands and phone in his front pockets, nearly dropping the phone as he does so, and crosses the deserted street.  Snow is already starting to build up in a thin layer on the sidewalk, and he brushes off the bench clumsily before he slumps down onto it.

Okay, who’s most likely to answer their phone?  It’s hard to think it through when his head is still in a haze of alcohol and shame and self-hatred, but he pulls up his contact list and stares.  Dean’s at a party, so he probably won’t hear his phone ringing, and Benny’s probably in bed by now - and he’s a sound sleeper.  Garth it is.  He knows Garth won’t mind coming to pick him up.

He selects the contact, tapping in frustration with his half-frozen fingers.  His phone keeps giving him a low battery message, but it had better damn well make this call.  Sam can’t walk home in the ice as drunk as he is - he’d nearly fallen on his ass crossing the street.  And it’s only getting colder.

_“Hello?”_

“Garth, man you gotta come get me,” Sam slurs.  He hadn’t realized his teeth were chattering until he heard his own voice.  “I’s cold.”

_“Sam?”_

“Yeah, I’m’at the park by Ruby’s.  Cascade.  Please, I don’have a coat and my phone’s dying.  Ruby drove but now I’m drunk off my ass and cold.”

There’s no response, and Sam repeats, “I’m cold.  Garth, can you come get me?”

Nothing. Sam pulls the phone from his ear, hoping to god he hasn’t hung up.  He’s having a little trouble focusing on the screen, but he definitely recognizes the red flashing symbol that indicates his phone is powering down and dead.

Sam’s best option at this point is to wait for Garth.  There’s no way he can walk back before he freezes to death, especially as drunk as he still is.  Sam lies down on the bench, hunching his legs up to his broad chest, wishing more than anything he’d grabbed his coat.  He can see the yellow light in the window of Ruby’s apartment, the way it radiates warmth that isn’t for him.  His coat’s right up there.  Right up there and completely out of reach.

He’ll be okay, though.  He just has to wait for Garth, and lying down feels surprisingly nice.  Some rational part of him is screaming that lying down in the snow is the worst thing he can do, but his eyelids are so heavy, and his whole body is just so cold, getting up would feel so cold…  Sam passes out in the cold on a bench in Cascade park.

 

* * *

“Sam?  Oh my god, Sam, please hear me.”

Someone is shaking his shoulder, and Sam slowly eases his eyes open.  His face hurts.  Why was he here, again? The park is a bit blurred around the edges, and not just with the haze of fresh snow still falling. Everything feels bleary and wrong, and he screws his eyes back closed again against the rush of freezing air.

“Come on, Sam, I need to get you to a hospital.”  It takes him a second to realize that whoever’s standing over him isn’t Garth, and he can’t quite place the voice. He works his eyes open enough to see that it’s Gabriel, which really doesn’t make sense, but he’s too cold to question it.  He can make out the sound of a car engine running in the distance.

“Why’re’ou…?” Sam attempts.

“No, shhh, just get in the car, okay?  I can’t carry you, you need to get up.”  Gabriel is trying to speak calmly, but the way his fingers grip Sam’s shoulder give away his panic.  Sam slowly starts groggily remembering that he’s outside, outside Ruby’s, that his phone was dead, and that he’d never managed to contact Garth, apparently.

“Sam, _please.”_ Gabriel pulls at his arm, and he sits up willingly.  “I don’t want to wait for an ambulance, I want to get you in the warm car.  Can you do that?”

Sam nods.  Now that he actually has a reason to get off the bench, it’s surprisingly easy.  Gabriel supports him, and he makes his way towards the car with only a little lurching.  It’s deliciously warm inside once he closes the passenger door.

“I’m calling the hospital, okay kiddo?”

“No, I don’t wanna go to the hospital.  Please just take me home,” Sam protests.  Hospitals are expensive, and he’s pretty sure he’ll be alright once he takes off his wet things and warms up.

Gabriel narrows his eyes.  “You’re slurring.  That means real bad hypothermia.  I can’t just-”

Sam shakes his head, laughter actually welling up in his gut despite the seriousness of the situation.  “That’s cause I’m _drunk.”_ He leans over, resting his head on Gabriel’s shoulder.  “I promise I’m okay.  I jus’ need to get inside somewhere.  Still shivering, see?”

Gabriel studies him, making that one suspicious face that Sam finds adorable.  “Okay, why the fuck are you out here alone and drunk?”

“Long story,” Sam says.  “I still don’know why you’re here.”

“You _called me.”_ Gabriel slips a hand down the back of Sam’s shirt, apparently temperature checking.  “Okay, I’ll take you back home, but I’m not leaving until you’ve taken your temperature and someone else is taking care of you.”

“Thank you.”  Sam sits back up in his chair, holding out his fingers in front of the heat vents, and is suddenly hit by the realization that his apartment keys are in his coat pocket.  “Shit. I don’have keys.” He scrunches up his face, trying to work out how he can get in using only Gabriel’s phone, three pennies from his jeans pocket, and his inebriated brain.

“That’s it.  You’re coming back to my place .”  Gabriel swings the car around a right turn, and Sam feels his stomach churn in protest.  He’s not sure if it’s the alcohol, the driving, or the idea of going back to Gabriel’s.

“You don’have to.”

“I’m not gonna leave you out here, dumbass,” Gabriel snaps.  Sam doesn’t answer.  After a quiet pause, Gabriel says softly, “You really scared me.  Your call just cut out. the last thing I heard was you saying you didn’t have a coat.”

“I called _you,”_ Sam realizes.  It makes sense now.  Gabriel and Garth are close in his contacts, and he’d been even drunker when he made the call.

“We’ve been over this, yes,” Gabriel grumbles, as though admitting he’d been scared was too much emotion to show in one car ride.  “Tomorrow, when you’re sober, I expect a full explanation.”

“You’re in your pajamas,” Sam laughs, definitely still a little drunk.

Gabriel shoots him a disgruntled look from the driver’s seat, and Sam lets out a little giggle.  He’d missed this man so much.

By the time they get to Gabriel’s, Sam has mostly stopped shivering.  “Okay, get out of all your wet stuff.  I’m gonna crank up the heat and make you soup.  Blankets are on the couch if you don’t mind a little dog hair.”

Sam tosses off his shirt willingly, kicks off his shoes, then pauses.  “Um.  ’M not wearing anything… under my pants.”

He gets a look of utter confusion.  “You were drunk in the snow _commando?”_ Gabriel shakes his head.  “You know what?  I don’t even want to hear it right now.  Just strip.”

Sam waits until Gabriel’s in the kitchen to take his pants off anyway, then wraps himself up in all three blankets.  Gabriel walks back through and, despite Sam’s protests, convinces him to use a thermometer.  By the time it beeps, Gabriel’s returned with warm broth.

“Your insides are normal enough,” Gabriel decides, and scoops up Sam’s clothes.  “Where are your socks?”

Sam swallows.  “I wasn’ wearing them.”

“Don’t wanna know.”   Gabriel returns without the wet things and settles down on the couch next to Sam.  “Drink your soup.  No rubbing your hands, either.”

“Did you take a course or something?” Sam asks, doing as he’s told and sipping the broth.

“Yep.  In college we all had to take winter safety before we were allowed on any snowboarding day trips.”

“Didn’ know you snowboard.”

Gabriel snorts.  “I used to snowboard.  I wasn’t any good.”  He reaches up and brushes Sam’s hair from his face, wrinkling his nose at how damp it is.  “Look, I know we’re not together or anything,” Gabriel starts hesitantly, “but for what it’s worth, I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Sam puts down his half-finished soup and leans against the other man, and that’s answer enough. 

 

* * *

That night, Sam sleeps on Gabriel’s couch. When he wakes up in the morning, it’s to the sight of Gabriel dozing in the armchair by the Christmas tree, lips slightly parted, hair mussed, and pajama top off by one button.  It’s also to a raging hangover and every memory of last night.

He hadn’t been able to get it up, and Ruby had kicked him out.  Even with some encouragement from his hands, he’d had a serious case of whiskey dick, and the longer he tried, the more impatient she’d become.  The more things she’d said about him.  God, Ruby was just so good at digging up his flaws.  After last night, he never wanted to see her again, but he had to get his things and apologize.

He had to break up, officially.  Although he was pretty sure she’d tossed him out as a lost cause, he’d also spent a good deal of time last night curled up with his ex boyfriend, and most people treat that as a deal-breaker too.

God, Sam’s life is a mess.  He’s a mess.  He’s a pathetic mess, and he doesn’t blame Ruby for throwing him out.  She’d been working with him, trying to fix him, doing _him_ a favor, and he’d been just too far on the drunk side of things and ruined all her work.  If even Ruby couldn’t make him less frigid…

Sam tries to stand up, but his legs are tangled in blanket, and he hits the floor with a thump that jolts Gabriel from his sleep with a half-formed snore.  “Bucket, no,” he calls on instinct.

Sam smiles despite his headache.  “The dog’s in the bedroom.  It’s me.”  He pulls himself up to sitting, careful to keep the blankets wrapped up tight.

Gabriel’s gaze turns to him.  “Oh hey, kiddo, how’s it feeling?”

“I have the worst headache of my life.”

“I was trying to watch over you in case you woke up, but you can see how that worked out,” Gabriel comments sheepishly.  “Lemme go get you some water.”

Gabriel insists that he stay for a shower and breakfast, and Sam has no desire to turn him down.  His headache has mostly subsided by the time he dries off and pulls on yesterday’s clothes.  He’d rather have something fresh to start the weekend, but he doubts anything of Gabriel’s would fit him - and they’re not exactly dating anymore.

Over breakfast in the ridiculously well-decorated kitchen, Gabriel cashes in on the explanation he’d wanted earlier.  “You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, but you’ve got me pretty damn curious, Bucko.”  The dog perks up from under the table.  “No, not you.  Sit.”  Sam pretends not to notice when Gabriel slips half a strip of bacon under the table to the terrier.  It’s becoming remarkably clear why Bucky is so out of shape, and lack of exercise has nothing to do with it.  Gabriel being a sucker for puppy eyes has everything to do with it.  “If this is some sort of Christmas miracle, something went wrong.”

“I didn’t have a ride to Ruby’s, so-”

Gabriel stops him with a confused frown.  “Hold up, Ruby?  As in Ruby Damion?”  Sam nods.  “My brother’s ex across from the park?  What were you doing with her?”

Sam flushes.  “I don’t know.”

Gabriel’s eyes widen, just a fraction of an inch.  “You were screwing her.”

“No, that’s the thing, I _wasn’t_ screwing her.”

“But you wanted to be?”  Gabriel asks, tilting his head.

“She wanted me to be,” Sam decides on.  It’s sort of true. Sam wanted to have been able to have sex with Ruby, just to get it over with.  But deep in his gut, he had no interest, even… repulsion at the idea of sleeping with her.

Gabriel bites into what’s left of his bacon.  “Trust me, she had something else at heart.  I don’t say this about a lot of people, but she’s a bitch.  Cold-hearted, scheming bitch.”

Sam nods.  “I was kind of getting that idea.  But she said-”  Sam pauses, not sure how much of this he wants to give away.  He doesn’t want Gabriel’s pity, not after last night.  “Look, she had me come over last night, because she wanted to have sex with me, and I kinda fucked that up.”

“Last thing I wanna do is pry-”

“That is a lie and you know it,” Sam accuses.

“Okay, okay, the very first thing I want to do is pry,” Gabriel admits.  “How the hell did you fuck that up?”

Sam looks down at his plate as he mutters, “Couldn’t get it up.”

Gabriel laughs.  “No shit, Sherlock, you were drunk as all hell.  Is that what you’ve been beating yourself up over?”

Sam shrugs.  “I don’t know.  She’s just really good at pointing out the bad in people, you know?”

“I promise whatever she said to you isn’t true, okay?”

“You don’t understand,” Sam says, tears starting to spring unbidden and unwanted to his eyes.  He blinks them down angrily.  “The worst things she said are true.  I’m… I’m frigid.”

“Sam, baby, I dated you that one time.”  Gabriel reaches across the corner of the table and rests his hand on Sam’s arm.  “We had a thing, remember?  You are warm and loving, and Ruby’s just angry she didn’t get her way last night.”

“No,” Sam says shakily.  “No, the whole reason we broke up was that I’m frigid, and broken - I’m a freak and a coward and-”

Gabriel’s chair scuffs against the floor as he shoves it back and stands up.  Before Sam can even dig up anything else Ruby had said to him, Gabriel’s at his side, cradling Sam’s head against his chest.  “Don’t you _dare_ say anything more.  Don’t you dare.”

His hands stroke over Sam’s still-damp hair reassuringly, and Sam can’t hold back his tears any longer.  They soak quietly into the front of Gabriel’s shirt, along with the water from his hair, but Gabriel doesn’t move away.  He quietly accepts Sam’s onrush of emotion .

“I don’t know,” Gabriel starts gently once Sam’s stilled a little, “if Ruby told you those things, or if you’ve been telling yourself, or a bit of both-” Sam nods, “-but they’re not true.  And I think there’s been a misunderstanding, kiddo.  Can we talk?”

“After breakfast,” Sam agrees, letting Gabriel detangle his fingers from Sam’s hair.  “Thanks.  I… I needed that. ”  He draws a breath and manages a watery smile.  “I wanted to call you, so many times, and not even to get you back, just because you’d know what to say to me.”

“You make me out to be some kind of word master.”  Gabriel sits back down.  “I’m not a word master.”

“Totally not what you said when you beat me at Scrabble.”

“Okay, fine, I _am_ word master.  Happy?”  He can tell Gabriel’s embarrassed about it.  Too much positive feedback overwhelms him, and Sam’s current opinion is definitely too much.  It always seems to be.

Sam manages a watery smile.  “I missed you.”

“And you think I didn’t?”  Gabriel says it casually, but he sounds hurt.

Sam had indeed thought Gabriel was perfectly okay and moving on, but he covers his surprise well.  “We should hang out sometime when you don’t have to pull me out of the snow.”

“Speaking of - how’d you get out there anyway?”

“Well, I… didn’t quite reach Ruby’s standards for the evening, so she…”  Sam abruptly snorts with laughter, because from the present perspective, warm and safe in Gabriel’s kitchen, it’s stupidly hilarious.  “She kicked me out,” he finishes.

Gabriel clearly doesn’t think it’s funny.  “She just threw you out in the cold. Without a coat.”

“Crazy, right?  She was so scary last night, I grabbed my clothes and got out as fast as I could.  But she kinda seems less powerful now.”

“Sam, you could have _died.”_

Sam nods.  “I know, but-”

“Seriously, if your phone had cut out a second earlier, I wouldn’t have known where you were.  I’d have tried to find you, but _Jesus,_ Sam.”

“Yeah, she was really giving me the cold shoulder,” Sam deadpans.  It’s more of an attempt at deadpan, because he’s holding back laughter, desperately hoping would Gabriel notice.

Gabriel notices.  “You dirty bastard. I’m trying to be serious about this!” he says with a lopsided grin.

“Talk about frigid,” Sam adds.

“Stop it,” Gabriel laughs.  “God, I forgot how awful you are.  Look, Sam, we need to talk about that phone call.  Not last night.  The other one.  I think… I think we misunderstood each other.”  Gabriel clears both their plates to the sink.  “Wanna migrate to the couch for this?”

Sam nods, and pulls Carly out from under the Christmas tree as he passes.  Dogs make serious conversations better, and he has the feeling things are about to get very serious.

Gabriel swings himself down into the chair that’s kitty-corner from Sam’s perch on the couch.  “Samson, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m getting the idea you don’t dance horizontal with anyone.”

Sam nods again.  “Yeah.  I know, it’s stupid and childish, but-”

“There’s nothing childish about it,” Gabriel interrupts.  “Your choice in partners or lack thereof is your own.  And if you don’t want to sleep with someone, you sure as hell shouldn’t have to.  If Ruby was trying to convince you otherwise, I’ll kick her ass.  Y’know, verbally.  I’m small and she has knives.”

“I mean, I gave her permission for everything.  I thought…” Sam swallows.  “She said she could fix me.”

“Oh, Sam.”  Gabriel doesn’t look pitying, just saddened.  “There’s nothing wrong with you.  I promise.  She’s been feeding you this idea that you’re broken because it’s her leverage, okay?  You don’t need her kind of help, kiddo.”

Sam nods shakily as Gabriel keeps going.  “And I’m sorry if I made you think you weren’t worthwhile.  I thought... I thought by open relationship you meant you were gonna screw other people instead of me.”

Sam blinks, confused.  “Why would I want to do that?”

Gabriel shrugs, but it’s less nonchalant now, more defensive.  “You stayed over; we got pretty close.  I thought maybe you didn’t like what you saw.”

Sam suddenly remembers how perfectly Gabriel had fit against his chest when they slept, the ease with which he’d held Gabriel while they’d made out in the kitchen, the sweet peanut butter pie kisses they’d exchanged after dessert, the insolent elbowing, the gentle weight of Gabriel’s hand on his knee.  “How could I not?”

Sam realizes it has to be a reflex, the way Gabriel’s hands migrate from his knees to cross over his stomach, and he feels, again, like he’s missed the obvious.  Gabriel is self conscious.  Gabriel thinks he’s just average.  Gabriel thinks Sam found him too repulsive to even undress, and suddenly Sam wants to kiss him until they’re both gasping for breath and assure him he’s wonderful.  And _beautiful,_ goddammit, he still finds Gabriel incredibly beautiful, and he wants to get close again.

But he can’t.  They’re not together anymore.

“I brought this one guy home from a bar,” Gabriel starts slowly, “and he wouldn’t let me take my shirt off when we fucked.  I didn’t want you to be like that.  And then you told me you didn’t even want to get naked with me, and I thought you were, okay?”

“Well, I’m not.”  Sam snaps more than he intends to in his sudden anger.  “That guy was a dick.”

Gabriel shrugs again, deflecting.  “Damn good lay, though.  But this isn’t about my issues.  Sam, if you take one piece of advice from your elders-”

Sam snorts.  Gabriel gives him the raised-eyebrows-tilted-head look that Sam hasn’t quite interpreted yet.  “Seriously, don’t see her anymore.”

“I have to get my stuff,” Sam protests.  “I have to let her know I’m not coming back.”  Carly jumps out of his lap, heading back for the tree before Gabriel can stop her.

“Do you want me to come with you for moral support?”

Sam considers.  On the one hand, ex-girlfriend and ex-boyfriend in the same room.  On the other, not being alone with Ruby.  It’s not being alone with Ruby that wins out, and he accepts.  “I actually have to go there this morning, to get my keys back.”

“And your coat,” Gabriel adds.  “No more repeats of last night, you promise?”

“Hey, I’m headed to Kansas tomorrow,” Sam raises his hands in protest.  “I’ll be out of your hair for a solid week.”

“That’s not my point.  It’s not about-”

“I know, Gabriel.”  Sam rests a hand on Gabriel’s knee reassuringly.  “Trust me, I’ll be with my Aunt Ellen.  If I don’t wear a coat and a hat at all times, she’ll put me on dish duty for a week longer than I’ll even be in state.”

“At all times?” Gabriel teases.  “Even in the shower?”

“Noble family tradition.  Don’t mock it.”

 

* * *

Sam hesitates so long at the door that Gabriel presses the buzzer for him.  Ruby’s voice comes over the speaker, _“Hello?”_ and he gets out only, “It’s Sam.”

_“Oh.”_ Finally she decides to buzz him in, adding, _“Come on up, babe.”_

In almost no time at all, he’s knocking at her apartment door, almost shaking with nerves.  It swings open, finally, and Ruby’s standing there in a tank top and pajama pants, smiling, looking dazzling as ever.  “Hey sweetie, what’s up?”

Gabriel tenses at his side, but Sam moves his hand back to touch his arm, indicating that it’s okay, that he doesn’t want a fight.  He really just wants to get his things and go home, but he knows the conversation has to happen.  He’d failed last night, and she’d made it clear she wouldn’t accept his continual failure.

“I’m here for my coat.”

“I’m sorry you forgot that last night.  Come on in.”  Ruby pulls the door wider, and catches sight of Gabriel for the first time.  “Who’s this?”

Sam doesn’t answer, and thankfully Gabriel speaks for him.  “A friend of Sam’s.”  His voice is smooth, low, and more dangerous than Sam’s ever heard it before.  “He’s not staying long.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruby asks with a little smile, “do you _own_ Sam?”

“We were going somewhere.  Don’t wanna be late.”  Gabriel turns to look at Sam, eyes suddenly softening.  “Find your coat.”

Sam nods and slips down the hall and into Ruby’s room.  His coat is still tossed over a chair, as he’d left it, and his socks and boxers are in a heap on the floor.  He grimaces, and decides that stuffing them down the arm of his coat is preferable to walking out carrying them.  On his way back up the hall, he pauses, catching what Ruby and Gabriel are saying now.  The urge to eavesdrop is stronger than the urge to leave, and he pauses at the doorway to the entry.

“-told him you could fix him.”  Gabriel’s voice, low and angry.

“And I am.  There’s no reason for you to get involved.”

“He called me from outside where you threw him out, if I hadn’t gotten involved-”

“He’d have been fine.  You think I don’t take care of him?”  Ruby raises her voice a little.

Gabriel’s patience  snaps.  “He’s not your plaything!”

She huffs, offended.  “I care about Sam enough to actually address his concerns.  You’re the one who sent him to me, you know.”  There’s a pause, where Gabriel doesn’t have a response.  “You’re his little sob story that sent him running right to me.  ‘Fix me so he’ll love me’ written all over him.  And I told him he can do better.”

“This isn’t about me,” Gabriel snarls, but he’s clearly taken aback.

“You don’t _want_ it to be about you, so you’re pretending you’re innocent.  Did you play savior for him yesterday?”

“I gave him a ride and a place to stay, it wasn’t- he’s a big boy.  He doesn’t need a savior.  Or someone to _fix_ him, by the way.”

“Sure.  Just… considering how obvious it is that you want him back, I thought you’d play it up a little more.  Maybe drive him home and kiss him on the doorstep.”

Sam slowly steps out of the doorway, holding his coat and trying to pretend he hadn’t been listening in.  “Hey, I got my stuff.  Can we head out?”

Ruby rounds on him, giving him those big doe eyes he’d loved so much.  “I want to talk about this.”

Sam nods.  “Okay.”  Gabriel narrows his eyes behind her.

“I shouldn’t have been so harsh about your mistake yesterday.  Come back tonight and we’ll try again. I’ll make you dinner, we’ll unwind first.  It’ll be great, Sam; I’ll be better to you.  And you’ll get better.”

“I can’t.”  Sam averts his eyes, feeling the familiar welling of guilt and shame.

“Sam.”  He glances back to her face, all serious and caring.  “Don’t leave me like this.  You mean so much to me, and you were doing so well.  Don’t let this asshole talk you out of what’s good for you.  I would be, Sam.  So damn good to you.”

Gabriel’s face screws up with rage, and he steps forward, putting himself between them.  “You shut the hell up.  You were never good to Sam, or he-”

“And you were?”  Ruby snaps.  The two of them are nearly eye to eye, and if things escalate any further, Sam may have to physically separate them.  He’s not letting it get that far.

“Stop it.  Both of you,” he says angrily, and the pair turns to face him, Ruby all wide-eyed and persuading, Gabriel confused and hurt.  “I don’t need you to fight over who treated me better, I can speak for myself.”

Gabriel ducks his head and moves to the door as Sam continues, “I’m done with you, Ruby.  I’m going home.  You know why?  Because at home, no one calls me a frigid freak.”

“I was _helping_ you.”

“No.  Gabriel’s right.  I don’t need your version of being fixed.  There’s someone out there who will make me normal and won’t hold it over my head.  Or I find it myself. Point is, we’re through.”

He lets out a deep breath, physically feeling his hurt and stress and humiliation flowing out with it, and turns for the door.  Gabriel doesn’t even grace her with a self-satisfied smirk as he pulls it closed.  From within the apartment, just as the door swings shut, he hears her shout after him, “Have fun alone, Sam!”  He doesn’t say anything back.  He doesn’t have anything to say.

“I’m sorry I jumped in back there,” Gabriel murmurs only somewhat begrudgingly as they start down the stairwell.

“You’re okay.”  Sam pulls his coat up to his chest and drops his head, burying his face in the fabric. Never having to meet up with Ruby again is a relief, but what she’d said is still swirling around his brain.  That no one else would accept him the way he was.  Maybe that wasn’t true, but it didn’t change the fact that he still wasn’t close to normal.

They drive back in near silence, and as they pull up in front of Sam’s building, he remembers what he’d overheard.  _Drive him home and kiss him on the doorstep._ He knows Gabriel won’t, but he wishes he would.

“Look, if you need anything over your break, you call me, okay?” Gabriel says, putting the car in park.

“You’re gonna be like four states away.”  Sam shifts in his seat, still remembering the last time he and Gabriel had parked outside his building, over two months ago.  He’d leaned across the center console and kissed Gabriel breathless.  “And I’ll be with family.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know about Ruby.  If you don’t wanna spill to them and you need to talk…”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“It’s just-” Gabriel sighs.  “She was manipulating you, and I don’t know if you recognize that.  It’s hard to see from the inside.  Trust me, big guy, I know.  So you call me.”

“I will.”

“I mean it, Sambo, I expect to hear from you sometime this year yet.”

“I can try,” Sam laughs.  “My family’s big on new year celebrations.  We never really did much for Christmas, but they’re gonna keep me busy the next few days.”

Gabriel just smiles, one of the soft, genuine ones, and Sam can’t stop himself from picking Gabriel’s hand off the gear shift and squeezing it tight.  “Thank you for everything.”

“It’s ah, it’s fine,” Gabriel answers, sounding genuinely taken aback.

“You’re a lifesaver, Gabriel, really.”

Gabriel tugs his hand free with the excuse of putting it back on the steering wheel, and if Sam didn’t know better, he’d think Gabriel was getting misty-eyed.  “Go in and start packing, would you?  I’m sure your brother’s curious where you’ve been.”

Sam snorts.  “Dean had a late one last night.  I doubt he’s even awake yet.”

“It’s a Saturday,” Gabriel comments.  “I wouldn’t judge him too harshly.”

As he slides out of the car, Sam fishes his keys out of his coat pocket.  “See you, Gabe.”

“You call me,” is Gabriel’s last admonishment as Sam closes the passenger door.

 

* * *

Being with his family is exactly what Sam needed after the stresses of finals and Ruby.  Although they’re something of a loud bunch, no one pressures him to do anything except set the table and bring in wood for the fire.  He’d forgotten how easy relaxing was.

Aunt Ellen is the closest thing Sam’s had to a mother.  She’s not technically related to him, but was married to his father’s brother before he’d died of a stroke over a decade ago.  Sam and Dean had spent countless weekends with her growing up.  Sam played with her daughter Jo, who was only two years younger than him, and Dean helped around the house as much as he could.  Jo had liked a wide variety of games, but her favorite had been a modified version of blanket fort camping where various stuffed animal wildlife had to be fought off with far more viciousness than eight year old Sam was comfortable with.  He still remembers nightmares about a particular tiger plush.  When he’d gotten older, Ellen had let him stay up and watch her crime drama shows with her.  No wonder he and Amy had gotten along so well.

Ellen ran a small bar just outside of town, mostly frequented by bikers and other people who were just passing through, and while it was a little rough around the edges, Ellen didn’t let any funny business take place.  Sam had spent a good deal of his teen years there, sipping a soda and watching Dean win pool money.  The bartender who worked when Ellen had the night off, Ash, was fun, if a little weird, and Sam has been looking forward to hearing his stories again.  He’s unofficially family, too.

Bobby Singer had been a friend of their mother’s, and after her death, he’d hung around a little to keep an eye on John and the boys.  The Mills had bailed him out of more than one dilemma; Jody being the local sheriff helped with that.  Charlie, who’s between Sam and Dean in age and like a sister to them both,  joined them, as well as  the Trans - Linda and her son Kevin.  Naturally, Ellen is hosting, and naturally, she puts the boys to work helping out the day they arrive home.

Sam, Dean, and Jo get some things done around the house that need more than one person, and Dean insists on taking Ellen’s shift at the bar for her so she and Sam can stay in and marathon Criminal Minds.  Sitting on that couch, talking with Ellen about his classes while Jo plays her old Gameboy in the recliner, Sam feels happy.  Normal.  He spends most of Wednesday helping Ellen prepare way more food than the family could ever eat, and forgets about Ruby entirely.

He also forgets about calling Gabriel until New Year’s eve, when the party is in full swing.  In his defense, he had texted a few times, just to share something funny his family was doing, or to reassure Gabriel that the road trip had gone okay and the motel room wasn’t as sketchy as the ones they usually end up in.  But he’s pretty drunk, and it’s about five minutes to midnight when he remembers, and immediately retreats into the other room with the phone despite Charlie telling him to hurry back because it’s almost midnight.  It doesn’t really matter - half the people in that room are going to be making out with someone anyway.  Dean’s old flame, Lisa, had dropped by, and Sam thanks heaven they’re staying with Ellen instead of in a motel.  Ellen won’t let Dean kick him out.

_“Hey Samboni, everything okay on your end?”_   Over the line, he can hear distant rave music and people cheering.

“Yeah.  You at a club?”

_“Just a friend’s party.”_ Gabriel pauses. _“Are you drunk?”_

“A little,” Sam admits.  “I’m with family, though, it’s fine.  Not gonna lie down in any parks.”

_“So why you calling, bucko?”_

Sam grins.  “You told me to call before the year ended.  So, happy new year.”

There’s a pause.  _“Oh my god, you are drunk.”_

“What?”

_“Time differences, Sammy, you forget ‘em.  It’s not even ten here yet.”_

“Right.”  Regardless, Sam can’t get the stupid grin off his face at hearing Gabriel’s voice again.  “Well, I hope you enjoy the party-”

“Sam, you got twenty seconds!”  Jo shouts from the other room.

“ _Better get back to your friends and family before the year ends.”_

“Yeah.”  Sam steps in the door to see the rest of them poised, champagne (and juice for Jody’s son) in hand, Lisa in Dean’s lap, Jo in Charlie’s.  “Actually, do you wanna hang on the line with me?”

_“I’d be thrilled to start the year with you.”_ Sam nearly misses the end of Gabriel’s reply, because the rest of them start counting down, and he joins in, trying not to yell too loudly in Gabriel’s ear until they reach zero.

“Happy new year!” Sam crows as the adult crowd downs their champagne.  Dean and Lisa start making out in a way that’s far too inappropriate for public, Jody and her husband kiss, and Jo gives Charlie a quick peck on the lips.  Gabriel yips a little at the roar of it.  “Sorry,” Sam says sheepishly.

“ _You’re fine.  I’ll let you get back to it, okay?”_

“Yeah.  Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

_“See ya, Sam.”_

As he hangs up, he can feel the gaze of most of the family on him, and flushes red.  “That was my- …Gabriel.”

 

* * *

_“It’s like two thirty over there, why aren’t you in bed?”_

“I am in bed,” Sam shoots back.  “You can call someone from bed.  Mobile phones exist.  It’s the twenty-first century.  I’s a new year.”

_“Okay youngster, I get it.  What’s going on?”_

“I jus’ wanted to say happy new year.”

Gabriel laughs.  _“You already-”_

“I know, but I wanted to say it in your time zone too.”

Gabriel hums softly.  _“You stayed up till two thirty for that?”_

“For you, yeah,” Sam says.  He doesn’t know what inspired it - possibly the alcohol - but the next thing out of his mouth is, “I really like you.”

Gabriel doesn’t reply. 

“I miss you. And your smile when you tell bad jokes,” Sam adds.  “Miss being able to kiss it.”

“ _You’re drunk,”_ Gabriel says finally.

“I’m not that drunk,” Sam insists. The line is quiet for a moment.  “You have a good time at the party?” Sam gets the conversation started again, suddenly flustered at having said too much.

“ _I did.  Lot of my old college friends there, a few of my coworkers.  It was a wild time.”_

“You get a new year’s kiss?”  Sam asks, only half teasing.

_“Nope.  Just a room full of high fives and some alcohol.”_ He hears a door opening and closing in the background, and the jingle of leashes.  Gabriel must have been taking the dogs out.

“If you were here…” Sam trails off.  He doesn’t have to say what he was thinking, because Gabriel reads it in the silence. He’d already made his intent perfectly clear.

_“When are you coming back to Salem?”_ Gabriel prompts.

“I’m leaving day after tomorrow, but we’re not going to get back until the third.  It’s like twenty-six hours of driving.  Little less because Dean speeds.”

_“You should come see me again.  I have something I want you to see.”_

“And if I ask what it is, you’ll tell me it’s a surprise?” Sam guesses.

_“Exactly!  Surprises are fun!”_

“That’s not what you said when I wouldn’t tell you where we were eating.”

_“Surprises are fun when I’m the one doing the surprises.  Just… trust me, okay?  I want to explain some stuff to you.”_

“Okay, I trust you.”

_“I’ll see you in a few days, Sam.”_

“Sounds good.  I actually have something for you too.  A surprise.”

_“Can’t wait.  Night, Samson.”_

“Goodnight,” Sam says, and hangs up.  There’s a weird sense of relief in his chest as he rolls over and settles back into his covers.  Gabriel still wanted to see him again.  Ruby had definitely made it sound that way when she was digging into Gabriel last week, but now he knows for sure.

 

* * *

Sam comes over blushing at the memory of his late night confession a few days ago and bearing gifts to make up for it: leftovers of the heaps of homemade candy Linda cranked out, a stack of cookies decorated by Jody’s son, and three slices of his own chocolate peppermint pie.

“I shouldn’t,” Gabriel protests as he pops another candy in his mouth.  “Really shouldn’t, Sam.”

“It’s a late Christmas gift, and they’re leftover.  Really, all yours.”

Gabriel makes a face.  “It’s not about- nevermind, just join me.  I need to show you this.”  Sam pulls a chair over as Gabriel rifles through a heap of papers for the ones he’s looking for.  “I remembered something I found when I was looking up information about what I am a few years ago.”

“What you are?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, pansexual.”  Gabriel shrugs.  “Or bisexual.  Honestly, they both fit well, and I don’t mind most people thinking of me as bi.  I stumbled on the concept of pan and did some digging.”

Sam wrinkles his nose, thinking.  “The prefix pan means all, right?  So all genders are attractive.”

“Bingo!  You catch on quick.  Try this one on- Prefix a.”

“A,” Sam muses.  “A used as a prefix means not or without usually.”

Gabriel slides a piece of paper across the table and twirls it with a flourish to face Sam.  Scrawled in the corner is “Sam,” and printed across the top is “ _Asexuality: FAQ_.”

“Without sexuality?” Sam asks, starting to skim the questions beneath.

“Technical definition.”  Gabriel plops a few more pages on the table.  “When used as an orientation, it basically means sexual attraction to no genders, or no one.”

Sam smiles, eyebrows arching upwards.  “Oh, yeah, I see why you’d share.  But I really don’t think that describes me.” He pushes the paper back towards Gabriel, who shoves it back and holds it there.

“Why not?  C’mon, give it a once over.  It could really make things clearer.”

“Because I’ve _been_ attracted to people,” Sam protests.  “I know I was attracted to Jess.  I loved looking at her, I wanted to be close to her, and you-”

“Rookie mistake,” Gabriel insists.  “Romantic attraction and sexual attraction are different, you know? So you can have different orientations for each one.  Being asexual doesn’t mean bullshit about your love life.”  He pauses.  “And I mean actual love here, not the horizontal kinda love.  You can also have…” Gabriel skims the list of questions on the paper and points to one, “aesthetic and slash or sensual attraction alongside your romantic..”

Sam reads the whole bullet point, and then reads it twice more, picking the paper up in both shaky hands.  What the author of the list is describing as sensual and aesthetic attraction is definitely what he’d thought was sexual attraction.  What he’d felt towards Jess, towards Gabriel, towards Amy, towards every brief relationship he’d ever had.

Gabriel is right.  Sam is probably asexual.

His first reaction? is a sense of relief at having somewhere he fits, at understanding why he feels the way he does, at knowing he isn’t a child and knowing he isn’t _broken._ He doesn’t have to try to work things out sexually if he doesn’t want to.  He’s normal and human and-

And then the thought comes crashing in that he’s going to be alone.  Asexual suddenly sounds like a life sentence to living alone and sleeping alone and re-running the faltering beginnings of relationships that crumble when his partner wants to get physical.

“Sound right?” Gabriel asks, interrupting Sam’s spiral of miserable life-planning.  “From what you told me about Jess… You were with her two and a half years, right?  So you’re probably not demi - you don’t develop sexual attraction even with an emotional connection.  And romantic interest in guys and girls equals _probably_ biromantic.  Could be pan or poly, but they’re all close.”  Gabriel is throwing a lot of terms at him, but Sam doesn’t have the emotional energy to care.  “Asexual, biromantic,” Gabriel announces with a grin.

“Great,” Sam snaps, curling his fists tight and crumpling the stupid, condemning paper.  “So I’m not even broken.”

“Of course not,” Gabriel says, confused.

“So I can’t be _fixed,”_ Sam stresses, trying not to tear the paper with the sudden rush of emotion coursing through his body.  He’s angry, and he’s afraid, and he’s sad, but mostly he’s just coursing with hurt.  “No one can make me right again.”

He’s quivering, and Gabriel tries to still him with a hand on his arm.  “Sam, if by right you mean attracted to people, then you never were ‘right.’  It’s an orientation.”

“I know.”  Sam jerks away, suddenly not wanting to let his betraying body have this touch.  “I didn’t choose it.  It was just forced on me whether I fucking wanted it or not-” Sam chokes back a wave of angry tears, “and now I’ll never be normal.”  He drops the paper and stands up, watching it flutter back to the table, creased and worn where he’d gripped it.

“I don’t understand.”  Gabriel stands too, trying to get closer to Sam’s level.  “We just worked out that what you’re feeling is normal; it has a name.”

“If I was broken,” Sam says slowly, “I could be fixed.  I could want sex.  But now this is who I am, and I have to live the rest of my life like this.”

Gabriel still seems lost, trying to sympathise but radiating only confusion.  Sam draws a deep breath.  “It’s just gonna keep repeating, dating someone until they want sex and then breaking up.  Who would date someone who won’t even try to fuck them?”

To his surprise, Gabriel lets out a whooshing laugh.  “That’s what has you so worked up?  Sam, baby, lots of people will, trust me.  There are other asexuals out there, for one, and two?  You’re a solid ten.  There are people who’d be happy just to look at you from afar.”

“That’s not what my experience has been,” Sam responds, although he can feel the panic subsiding with Gabriel’s reassurance.

“You’re young, you’ve got time.  How old are you, anyway, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-four.”

“ _Twenty-four,_ ” Gabriel repeats.  “Jesus, I feel old.”

Sam grins weakly.  “Again?”

“I may be having something of an early midlife crisis.”

“Started a band yet?”

“Not yet, although that’s always an option.  Thirty-five just hit me hard.”

Thirty-five.  “You had a birthday,” Sam realizes.

“In December.”

“I missed it.”

“Look, kiddo, the important thing is that you don’t let this get you down, okay?  Just keep looking into it, and see how the label fits.”

Sam shakes his head.  “I just… I can’t think of anyone I know who would have a relationship without sex.  It’s so important to what feels like everyone but me-”

_“I would_ , okay?” Gabriel interrupts.  “There’s one.”

Sam’s thoughts stop dead.  “You would?”

“Yep, and I’m a slut.  So there’s more out there, guaranteed.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam breathes.  “Forget anyone else out there, I’ll just date you again.”

“Whoa, hang on tiger.”  Gabriel holds up his hands in protest.  “No need to go for the first thing you reel in.”

“What?”

“There are bigger fish in the sea.  Metaphorically.”  Gabriel thinks for a second, then shrugs.  “And physically, I guess.”

Sam draws a breath.  “Are you telling me to… _metaphorically_ throw you back?”

“Just because I’m- Look, Sam, there are better people out there.  For you.”  Gabriel looks so sincere, and some small part of Sam feels bad for him, but that part is rapidly overridden by the flare of his anger.

“So you break up with me because I can’t have sex, invite me back to condemn me to a dating pool the size of my middle school, and then decide to throw false hope at me?  What the hell are you doing?”

Gabriel flinches.  “I wasn’t trying-”

“Yeah, I realized,” Sam snarls.  “But you think it’s some kind of joke to just throw out there that you’d date me, and then turn me down because you think you know what’s best for me?  Like I’m a kid?”

“I wasn’t joking, I-” Gabriel squeaks out.

“Fine, but don’t pretend this is about some kind of noble-” Sam stops, mouth open a little ways with the next angry word still making its way up his throat.  Gabriel’s face is set in a deep scowl, but he’s on the verge of tears.  Tears.  Sam’s making him _cry._

Sam swallows hard, then picks the paper back off the table, pretending to look at it.  The weight of what he’d said hangs in the air in the kitchen, and he hears Gabriel sniff loudly.  “I’m sorry I lost my temper,” Sam says softly, still looking down at the crumpled paper.  The word _“Sam”_ is in the corner, clearly Gabriel’s handwriting, and he feels a pang of guilt.  Gabriel had dug all this up for him, with the idea only of making things easier for someone who he wasn’t even dating, and Sam had been nothing but nasty the whole time.

He glances back at Gabriel.  “You really believe that, huh?”

Gabriel doesn’t respond.

“Forget it, just… I brought you something.”

“Better not be more food.”  Gabriel attempts to lighten the mood, but the tension is so thick, Sam can almost feel them both choking in it.

“Unwrap it in the living room, by the tree” he urges.  “It’s more Christmas-y that way.”

“What, I didn’t hang up enough garland in here?” Gabriel asks, glancing around the room pointedly, but he picks Carly off the floor and carries her into the living room anyway.

The  change in scenery is exactly what they’d needed, and Sam leaves the paper about what he is balled up in the kitchen.  He doesn’t want to think about that right now.  Everything feels easier when they’ve settled on the couch with Carly wedged happily between them, and Gabriel’s turning the narrow, flat box over and over, trying to identify it by weight or sound or _something._ “I give up, Sambo.  I’m gonna have to ruin your wrapping job.”  He tears the paper off with so much glee that Sam laughs a little, stroking the corgi’s ears as Gabriel opens the box.

“Sam, you didn’t.”  Gabriel turns to him, eyes wide with disbelief.

“I did.  I have one too.”  Sam reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out a matching ticket for an art exhibit held in a high-caliber museum in Portland.

“These are wicked expensive, I couldn’t-” Gabriel is clinging to the ticket as if afraid someone would snatch it away, completely contradicting his own protests.

“They were a gift,” Sam assures him.  “I wanted to go, and Bobby and Ellen pitched in together.”  Sam hesitantly reaches across the space between them and rests his hand on Gabriel’s.  “There’s no one I’d rather go with.  Please.”

Gabriel makes a face.  “Ooh, you’re a cruel manipulator.  I’m weak.”

“I know,” Sam grins wickedly.  “Come with me, or this second ticket will just sit in my desk drawer,  sad and alone, until I find someone to give it to.”

“Fine, sign me up,” Gabriel huffs.

“Perfect,” Sam beams.  “I’ll pick you up next weekend then.”

 

* * *

Sam researches asexuality extensively, and finds that he relates to a good deal of the articles written by other “aces.” Two days after the incident,  he finally texts Gabriel about it.

*Did some more digging and you’re right.  Probably an ace.*  There isn’t a reply, and Sam adds, *and I’m sorry about yelling the other night.  will never do it again.*

_*its okay. you were on edge and i moved too fast. glad u figured it all out!*_

Sam smiles down at his phone, reassured, then remembers something he’d read during his findings.  _Talking about it with a trusted friend or family member helps some people feel more accepted and comfortable in the new label or more confident in their identity._ Sam draws a breath, and opens contacts.

_“Hi Sam, what’s going on?”_

“Hey Amy,” Sam smiles just at the sound of her voice over the phone.  He hasn’t talked to her since last fall, when she’d asked him to proof an important document, and even then she hadn’t talked much - she was heckled and moving non-stop at work that week.  “Just thought I’d call and see how things are going.”

_“Don’t you lie to me, Sam Winchester, you never call to see how things are going.”_ There’s a teasing edge in Amy’s voice, but she’s not going to let him squirm out of what he called about, which is exactly why she’s still one of his best friends.

“Okay, yeah, I do have something I want to talk to you about.  But seriously, how are you?  You’re due in what, two months now?”

_“Due date is forty-seven days, but I feel like it’s gonna be sooner than that.  My boss won’t let me touch half the shit in the lab anymore and I’m done with asking Jake to mix my basic compounds for me.”_

“Is Jake a dick?” Sam asks.

_“Jake… can_ be _a dick.”_

“I hear you.”

_“Anyway, doctors are saying it’s going to be a boy, but it’s not a sure thing.  Fingers crossed!”_

“You’re hoping for a daughter?”

_“Not really.  I don’t care, per say, but I’ve got a bet going, and Pete’s collecting all this blue shit, and I’m stockpiling pink shit, and neither of us want to make returns.”_

Sam laughs.  “So have another one in a few years?”

_“Definitely on the table.  But I feel like my little girl’s just gonna have a lot of blue in her life.”_

“Next time I’m in Kansas, I’ll have to come see her.”

_“Please do.  It’s been way too long since I’ve seen you, and you can babysit while I nap.”_

“Got it.  Always here for nap duty.”  Sam lays back on his bed, kicking off his shoes.  “It’ll be exactly like that time I visited you at school and you took a nap while I was in your room.”

_“Oh, my god, Sam.  That was one time.”_

“That was literally every time I talked to you in college!”  Sam protests.  “I call you, ‘Hey Amy, what’s happening?’  ‘Oh, just woke up from another fucking _nap.’_ Every time.”

_“Science is rough, man.  Your homework was like, writing some arguments down, and I was cutting people up.”_ Amy pauses.  _“Dead people, I should clarify.  I am not mentally prepared to be a surgeon.”_

“I never understood that.”

_“I don’t like it!” Amy squeaks.  “I don’t like opening alive people; I don’t even like thinking about it.  If those bitches c-section me, I’m gonna throw up.”_

“And dead people are better?”

_“Dead people are just cool, okay?  Don’t you judge me, Winchester, I hear that laughter.”_ Sam can hear Amy stifling her own giggles.  _“I need to not laugh when I scold if I’m gonna be a mom.”_

“Have you been practicing your mom voice?”  Sam asks accusingly.

_“Only sometimes.  Anyway, what did you call about?  How are things out in witch town?”_

Sam scratches the bedcovers idly, trying to focus the abundance of energy in his system.  “Okay, I’m just gonna get this off my chest.”

_“Shoot.”_

“I took a chance and went out with this dude, back in like, October.”

_“Sam, are you bi?”_

“Sort of.  It’s a long story, but we broke up on a misunderstanding, and he thought…” Sam pauses, trying to figure out how to say he didn’t like sex without being too brutal about it.  “He thinks  I might be asexual.”  Amy doesn’t respond.  “I think he’s right.”

_“That’s not a bad thing; you know that, right?”_

“I know.  He told me that too.  But it’s just… it’s weird, knowing I’ll never be normal.”

_“Don’t take this wrong,”_ Amy says slowly, _“but you were never normal, Sam.  Neither of us were, and neither were most of our friends, y’know?”_

“You’re normal now.  Job, marriage, baby, the book…”

_“I cut up dead people for a living,”_ Amy deadpans.  _“Pete and I solved our room color problem by having a paint fight in the baby’s room, and I’ve literally never met a writer who wasn’t weird as hell.  Your definition of normal is either way too limited, or way too broad, depending on if I fall in or out of it.”_

“I guess so,” Sam muses.  “And I’m a little offended you didn’t tell me about the paint war.”

_“It was just last weekend, cut me some slack.  I’m busy.  I have to do like, sleep for two and shit.”_

“Yeah yeah.”

_“All I’m saying is you being asexual really doesn’t change anything, because you always were.  I mean, it makes sense, thinking back.”_

“How so?”

_“You didn’t want to have sex with me when we were dating.”_

“We were kids!” Sam protests.

_“We were like seventeen and you had no interest.  I kinda thought you were gay at first.  I mean, I appreciate that we didn’t go anywhere, but honestly, if you’d have asked, I’d have gone for it.  Waiting isn’t as fun as it sounds when you’re like twelve.”_

“Oh.”  Now that he thinks about it, the whole asexual thing is starting to fit quite well with his past experiences.  “So what you’re saying is I shouldn’t worry, because I’m still the same Sam, and that’s the real moral of the story?”

_“Dead on.”_

Sam laughs.  “God, you really are a mom, huh?”

_“Yup.  Hey, but back to the asexual thing - I was just talking with my friend Meg the other day and she mentioned being…. something kinda like that.  Starts with D.”_

“Demisexual?”

_“That’s it!  So you’re really not alone, promise.  I could set you guys up, if you want.  She’s in northern California.”_

“Thanks,” Sam says, “but I kinda already have a date this weekend.  And if things go how I want them to, I won’t need to be set up with anyone else ever again.”

 

* * *

Although he’d been expecting a talkative, excited Gabriel on the way up to the museum on Saturday, Sam instead ends up with a sleeping Gabriel in the passenger seat, and steals glances at every red light.  Ever since the night Gabriel had invited him to stay, Sam had known he was in deep.  He had wanted nothing more than to sleep next to Gabriel every night, and it’s still what he wants now, two months and a nasty breakup later.  He just wants a second chance, and he has the idea Gabriel wants that too.

As cliché and stupid as it sounds, Sam feels like he’s found the love of his life.  Wherever life takes him after his last semester of school, he wants to be with Gabriel.  God, this whole art museum thing better work.  That second ticket had been expensive as hell.

“Hey, we’re in Portland,” Sam says softly, nudging Gabriel’s arm with his elbow as he pulls the key from the ignition.  “I can’t carry you into the museum.  I mean, I could, but we’d get some weird looks.”

“Mmph.  Sorry.”  Gabriel rubs his eyes and then gazes out the passenger window.  The parking lot is full of tiny rivers leading to puddle-lakes, and the museum building is bright against the dismal gray sky.  He pulls his coat back on and zips it up.  “I meant to be quality company on the drive up.”

“It’s fine.  Besides, you’re cute when you sleep.”  Gabriel shoots him a concerned glance and Sam flushes a little.  “I mean that in the least creepy way possible.  I didn’t want to wake you, is all.”

“Damn right.  I was up late last night.”

“What for?”

Gabriel shrugs, opening the passenger door and pulling up his hood against the drizzle.  “Talking to myself, mostly.  Thinking out loud while Carly watched me pace.”

“Oh?”  Sam locks the car (manually because Dean won’t invest in a goddamn key fob) and falls in step with Gabriel across the parking lot.

“About today, actually.”  Gabriel kicks at a rock.  “You know this isn’t a date, right?”

“It totally is,” Sam insists.

“I’m not _letting_ this be a date,” Gabriel protests as they push the first set of doors open.  “Sam, I’m not saying I don’t want to go out with you, I just don’t want you to feel obligated because I’m the first guy to accept your sexuality.  There are-”

“That’s not why I’m going out with you.  I liked you long before any of this even came up.”  They’ve stopped in the entryway, not really in the museum and not really outside.

“I thought you were just in it for the fuck, okay?”

Sam’s lips twitch upwards.  “And now you know I’m not.”  Gabriel tries to move for the door inside, Sam blocks him with a subtle shift of his body weight.  They lock eyes for a moment, and Sam can see that under the stubbornness in Gabriel’s amber gaze, there’s something else.  Fear?  “Look, I just need you to know,” Sam starts, “that I have a huge freaking crush on you.  I want this to work out so we can be together.  That’s all.”  He steps back from the door, and Gabriel brushes past him, head down.

Gabriel avoids the topic by chattering about the various works currently on display as the woman behind the counter scans their tickets and points them in the direction of the exhibit.  Sam reaches down and brushes his fingers against Gabriel’s, feeling a tiny surge of victory when Gabriel takes his hand.  “Now it’s definitely a date, because I just bought your ticket, and then I’m gonna buy you dinner in Portland.  Come on, I wanna get through the special exhibit before the crowds start showing up after lunch time.”  Gabriel doesn’t object, and he doesn’t let go of Sam’s hand.  Sam counts it as a victory.

The artist whose work is in the gallery, Becky Rosen, is one of Sam’s favorites.  She mixes thick layers of gloss into her paint so each work ends up looking like stained glass in a painting, and then the thin paper is backlit, making it glow from within.  The pieces on display are some of her more well known works, but some of her newer things are for sale, down at the end of the series of rooms.

Gabriel is pacing back and forth between two, the left one depicting bird-like humans floating across space, galaxies pouring from their hair, the other a simpler piece, with lions perched like birds on power lines.  “I can’t decide which I like better.”  Sam watches him from the closest bench, resting his legs.  He likes awake and lively Gabriel even more than he likes sleepy Gabriel.  “She mentioned working on some fantasy pieces about birds a few years ago, but I didn’t know it would be this fantastic.  Holy hell, I wanna be in that painting.  And not in the sexual way, you perv,” Gabriel adds, giving Sam a quick glance over his shoulder, raising both eyebrows suggestively.

“You met the artist?”

“Once, yeah.  I was a little starstruck but I think we hit it off pretty well.  I must have told you about that, right?”

“Don’t think so.”

Gabriel turns to face him, frowning.  “Then how’d you know to invite me to the exhibit?”

Sam shakes his head, smiling.  “I like her work, and I guessed you liked art, so I thought you’d enjoy it. I mean, you have all that art hanging in the hall-”

“That’s, uh, that’s not art I bought.”  Gabriel says, confused.  “That’s mine.”

Sam can feel his jaw physically drop.  “Wait, you made all the stuff in the hall?”

“Yup.  Piece over the couch, too.  I kinda just thought you weren’t super into it, since you never mentioned...” Gabriel sits down on the bench next to him, still gazing at the two paintings.

“Holy sh-” Sam catches himself, remembering the group of kids in the other room, and asks in a hushed voice, “What the hell else are you hiding?”

“Not hiding a thing, kiddo.”  Gabriel leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.  “Just full of surprises, I guess.”  Sam suddenly remembers being in Gabriel’s kitchen, Gabriel telling him there were candles, because he was full of surprises, even if he was nothing special...

“Gabriel.”  Sam waits to go on until Gabriel’s looking up at him.  “You’re really special.”  Gabriel turns back away, but Sam doesn’t let that stop him.  “And if you really don’t want to go out with me, there’s still no way in hell I’m letting you escape this friendship, even though I don’t understand why, because we’ve ha-”

“ _Because I’m a disappointment,”_ Gabriel snaps.  “That’s why.  I don’t want to let you down, okay?”  Gabriel runs both hands through his hair, quivering with pent up energy, but goes limp when Sam takes his wrist gently.

“You aren’t a disappointment.”  Sam traces his fingertips over back of Gabriel’s hand, then the palm, feeling out each callus and ridge.  “Remember when Ruby kicked me out, and I thought she was right in calling me broken, and you showed me I wasn’t?  I swear to god, Gabriel, I’m gonna do the same thing for you.”  Sam squeezes his hand.  “Please. If you push me away-”

“For the love of god,” Gabriel interrupts.  “You don’t get it.  I have done _nothing_ but let people down. My mom worked her _ass_ off after dad died to raise us, okay?  She was working to support two six year olds and a four year old, and she accidentally had me, to boot, and she _did_ it, she got us all into colleges on scholarships.”

Sam tilts his head inquiringly as Gabriel swallows hard.  “My oldest brother is a board executive, major player in some big corporation out east, and he’s got… he’s got the sweetest wife, and two little kids.  His twin’s a doctor, okay, like brain surgeon kind of doctor.  Put himself through med school.  My sister is trans, and she’s an activist, and mom’s so proud of her, of finally having a daughter…”

Sam doesn’t say anything.

“I dropped out of college.”  Gabriel  takes in a deep, steadying breath.  “I… I was going to be a real artist, y’know?”

“You _are_ a real artist,”  Sam says consolingly.  He can feel a lump rising in his throat at the thought of what Gabriel’s going to say next.

“I clean floors, Sam,” Gabriel says bitterly.

“I thought you liked the job.”

“I do, I just…”  Gabriel sighs, still holding onto Sam’s hand.  “When I said I’m not good enough to take home to family, I didn’t just mean yours.  I meant mine too.”

“Gabriel…” Sam puts his arm around Gabriel’s shoulders.

“I know they love me, but when we come home for Christmas, guess which kid gets the disappointed looks” - Gabriel’s voice wavers - “across the table, when everyone else is talking about what fucking great thing for humanity they accomplished-”

Sam stops him there, pulling him in close.  Gabriel heaves a shuddering breath before he goes on.

“I don’t want to drag you into that.  I don’t want you to have to sit there with me while everyone forces themselves not to ask how you got stuck with me.”

“They better not,” Sam says with a hint of menace.

Gabriel ignores him.  “No one’s been interested in me, long-term, before you.  It was all hook-ups and first dates that led to hook-ups.  I thought that was what you wanted too, at first, and now… now I like you a lot, Sam.  I don’t wanna let you down.  God knows I do it to everyone else.”  He leans against Sam, eyes squeezing closed.  “That’s my sob story.  And that’s why I think you should move on.  So do with it what you will.”

They sit quiet, Sam just feeling Gabriel’s breath moving his sides with each slow in and out.  “I could list a lot of good things you’ve done,” Sam says finally, “but those aren’t why I like you.  I like you for you, okay?  I want to spend all my time with you; I love your jokes and your compassion and just holding you- I just... you’re beautiful.  And you amaze me, every day.”

Gabriel makes a grumpy ‘hmmph’ against Sam’s shoulder.  “You’re being sappy.”

“You need it,” Sam says, and drops a kiss on the top of his head.  “Are you going to stop being stubborn and let us happen?”

Gabriel sits quiet, then detangles himself from Sam’s grip, walking back towards the two paintings.  “What do you think, Sam?  Left or right?”

Sam sits blinking for a moment, wondering if Gabriel’s even going to answer, but then says slowly,  “Left.  Why?”

“Well, I’m gonna buy it, and hang it in the living room, and,” Gabriel shuffles his foot on the carpet, preferring to look down at the toe of his shoe, “I thought I’d let you decide, since you’re gonna be over a lot…”

Sam springs from the bench and crushes Gabriel into his arms.  “I can’t wait.”

Gabriel smiles up at him.  “Me neither.”  And for the first time, Gabriel initiates the kiss.  It’s soft and chaste and warm, but Sam’s so content just with the way their lips fit together that nothing else matters.

Gabriel purchases the painting and arranges for it to be shipped, and then he and Sam wander through the rest of the museum’s exhibits, and they don’t let go of each other’s hands for more than a second.  Sam insists on buying dinner at a place in Portland, but they end up getting it to go and eating in the car, swearing that Dean won’t find out.  And since it’s Saturday, Sam doesn’t even make it home.  He sleeps in Gabriel’s bed that night, and he feels like he’s exactly where he belongs.  He lies awake for a long time after Gabriel falls asleep, too euphoric to sleep quite yet.  Gabriel’s nestled into the striped bedding, lips parted a little as he breathes slowly and deeply and snores, just faintly.  Sam  could get very used to this.

Sam wakes up before Gabriel the next morning, and shifts over on the bed to look at him.  Sam hadn’t been lying when he’d said he liked the way Gabriel looked asleep.  It was the only time he stopped moving for more than ten seconds or looked anything close to calm, and Sam gently brushes a few dirty-blond wisps of hair from his boyfriend’s face before sitting up.

“Hey,” Gabriel mumbles.  “Who do you think you are, trying to leave without a good morning kiss?”

“I wasn’t going home, stupid, I was gonna make you breakfast.”  He swings his legs back into bed and flops down on the pillow.  “But now you’re gonna have to help.”

“I don’t care,” Gabriel says with a little smile.  “As long as you’re not ducking out on me.”

“Oh yeah, that’s me,” Sam teases, wrapping his arm around Gabriel’s waist.  “I’m a sleep with you and then leave you kinda guy.”

Gabriel snorts.  “Oh my god, just give me my kiss already.”  He squirms closer as Sam’s mouth first brushes his, and then settles into the mattress with a soft sigh, warm air against Sam’s upper lip.  The ceiling fan hums softly, just barely covering the wet breathy sounds of their kiss, and the soft drag of Sam’s hand over the fabric of Gabriel’s shirt.  Sam remembers reading that some asexuals didn’t like kissing, but oh, he is definitely not one of them.  He opens his mouth willingly for Gabriel’s tongue to tease the inside, and drags his teeth against it gently as it pulls back, earning him a surprised hum.  The second he pulls back for air, Gabriel moves to his neck, trailing feather-light kisses down his throat.

“How the hell were you still single?” Sam breathes.

“I was waiting for you to come along,” Gabriel purrs against the top of his sternum.

“Sap,” Sam says accusingly, craning his neck to kiss Gabriel’s forehead.  “Let’s get breakfast.”

While Gabriel digs out the wafflemaker, Sam checks his phone to find a text from Dean.  _*assuming all went well and ur banging ur boyfriend, so congrats sammy. bring my baby back by tonight and use protection*_ Sam smiles down at it, glad Dean’s being so supportive about the whole ‘boyfriend’ thing.  One of these days, once he’s a little more sure in his identity, he’ll come out to Dean for real.  But for now, he’ll let Dean keep thinking he and Gabriel are going at it.  It doesn’t bother him the way it used to with Jess; it feels like a tiny inside joke he and Gabriel are in on - not banging when Dean thinks they are.  It doesn’t feel like a dig at one of his flaws anymore.

Classes start back up the next week, and Sam finds it easy to slip into his new routine.  He sleeps over at Gabriel’s a few times a week, sometimes comes over just for dinner, movies, games, and dog petting sessions - which is far more stress relieving than it sounds.  Gabriel wants to listen to him talk, even if it’s just about classes, and he doesn’t pressure Sam about the lack of sex; in fact, he seems to enjoy their cuddling sessions even more than than Sam does.  He feels at home and content with the touches, but Gabriel absolutely thrives on them, and Sam is more than willing to give.  He feels at home.

 

* * *

“Please.”

“Mmmph.  Don’t puppy eyes me.”

“They won’t bite.”

“I’ll do it next week.”

“That’s what you said last week.”

“Pinky promise this time?”

Sam huffs.  He can’t tell if Gabriel’s just being stubborn, or genuinely doesn’t want to meet Sam’s roommates.  “I’m not getting out of this car unless you get out with me,” he decides, settling back in the passenger seat.

“Good, I’ll take you home with me,” Gabriel fires back, but he turns the engine off.  He’s giving ground.

“This is important to me, okay?  I know you’re not close with your brothers, but Dean pretty much raised me.  Best big brother in the world.  And he’s been asking about you.”

“Which is why I don’t want to meet him, Sam,” Gabriel protests.  “This is a huge deal.  If he doesn’t like me, it’ll be a mess for you.”

“He’s going to love you.  I promise.”  Sam opens the passenger door a crack, letting the February winds invade the warm car. “Let me introduce you? Please?”

Gabriel unbuckles his seatbelt, pouting just a little.  “Fine.”  He doesn’t say another word until they’re outside the apartment door, Sam fumbling with his keys.  “What if they hate me?”

“Then I tell them to call me when they’ve grown a soul and go stay at yours.  You’re adorable.  They have to like you.”  Sam unlocks the door and pushes it open before Gabriel can protest being called adorable.  He’s heard the rant a few times now and doesn’t need it again.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean calls from the living room, “did you bring me take out?”

“No, but I brought something better,” Sam responds as he and Gabriel cross the hall into the living room.  Dean and Benny are each flopped on a couch, but Dean sits up and takes notice when he sees the pair of them.  “Gabriel, this is my brother Dean. Dean, Gabriel.”

Dean’s face breaks into a wide grin.  “So you’re the one he won’t shut up about, huh?”  He stands up and crosses the room in a couple strides and takes Gabriel’s hand in both of his. “Nice to finally meet you.”

Gabriel looks back up at Sam, one eyebrow raised.  “Do you come from a family of giants?” he asks disbelievingly, “because I thought maybe it was just you, but apparently it’s not.”

Benny laughs.  “You ain’t gonna want me to stand up then.  I’m six feet.”

“I’ve heard about you too.  Benny, I assume?” Gabriel drops Dean’s hands and picks his way across the cluttered room to shake Benny’s.

“In the flesh.  You and Sam go somewhere nice?”

“Great Italian restaurant down on High Street,” Sam answers. “I know you aren’t into it, but I thought the spinach lasagna was amazing.”

“Ugh, you and your vegetables,” Dean mocks.  He whirls on Gabriel.  “Are you in on this rabbit food conspiracy too?”

“God no.  I live on sugar and awful jokes.”

“I think I can definitely learn to like you,” Dean decides, clapping Gabriel on the back.  Sam beams.

 

* * *

“I told you they wouldn’t bite,” Sam says soothingly.  They’ve stopped at the bottom of the stairwell of Sam’s apartment building to say goodnight, and Gabriel’s been quiet ever since goodbyes.

Gabriel nods.  “I know.  I just worried they’d… think I wasn’t good enough for you, y’know?”

Sam kisses the top of his head.  “No one thinks that but you.”

“I don’t.”  There’s quiet for a moment, and then Gabriel says slowly, “Personally, I think we’re adorable together.”

He hasn’t said that before, or anything remotely close to it, and Sam’s heart swells with joy as Gabriel looks up at him, open and sincere.  A smile slowly spreads across Sam’s face as he answers, “I do, too.”

“Welp, I should be heading home,” Gabriel rushes, glancing back down at his feet.  “You have class, and…”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sam says, still grinning.

Gabriel leans in and kisses Sam’s lips gently.  “Tomorrow.  Yeah.  Goodnight, Samson.”

 

* * *

“You send your boyfriend home?” Dean asks as Sam closes the apartment door and starts kicking off his shoes.

“Yeah. I have early class tomorrow, so I thought I should stay here for the night.”

“Damn shame, Sammy.  It’s Valentine’s day.”

“We had dinner.” Sam drops into the spot on the couch once occupied by Benny, who had turned in for the night.

“Still. I thought you two would be screwing like bunnies. Or making love like slightly more romantic bunnies.” Dean clicks the TV off and stretches out on the couch.

“About that…” Sam starts. 

Dean looks up at him expectantly.  There is no backing out.

“We kind of… don’t.”

“Are you actually telling me you two haven’t done anything yet?”

“Yeah, Dean,” Sam says slowly.  “Relationships can work without sex.”

“I get _that_ ,” Dean sits up, but doesn’t look at Sam, preferring to stare down at his bare feet.  “I’ve been kinda considering doing the long distance thing again.”

Sam frowns.  “With who?”

“Someone I met online.”  Dean shifts.  “That’s not important.  Point is, I would if I could. That guy looks at you like you’re water in the desert, man.  You obviously adore him.  Why wait?”

“I’m not attracted to him that way.” Sam sighs.  “Look, I was sort of only partially telling the truth when I told you I was bi, so here I go again, for real this time.  I’m biromantic, but I’m asexual.”

Dean frowns, confused. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“I don’t want to have sex with anyone.  I never have, and I don’t want to.”  It feels amazing, saying it out in the open for the first time, and even better knowing he doesn’t have to fake anything around his brother anymore.  Sam sinks back into the couch.

“Not with… anyone?” Dean asks, trying to make sense of it. “I mean, I hear you, man, but that sounds damn near impossible.  Not even like… ScarJo?”

Sam shrugs. “Not even ScarJo.  I just don’t have the attraction most people do, same as you wouldn’t want to sleep with a dude.”

Dean crosses his arms over his chest defensively. “You don’t know that about me, Sammy.  I’m an enigma.”

Sam decides to let the comment slide.  “Okay, the same way _Charlie_ wouldn’t want to sleep with a dude.  Point is, that’s who I am, and Gabriel’s accepted it.”

“Never getting laid. Ever.”

Sam nods. “I didn’t really think of it that way, but yeah.”

“I’m impressed.  Dude must have a strong relationship with his right hand.”

Sam rolls his eyes.  “Dean.”

“Look, I’m just glad the two of you are happy.  He seems cool.  And normally I’m not one to pry into your personal life, but, ah, I’m glad you told me.  I should probably stop with the protection jokes.”

“That’d be nice, yeah,” Sam agrees.  “I’m gonna head to bed now.”

“Alright.”  Dean pulls his laptop off the coffee table and opens it as Sam hauls himself off the couch.  “Goodnight, Sammy.”

 

* * *

**THIS SECTION IS OPTIONAL, AS IT DEALS WITH SEXUAL CONTENT. IF YOU'RE UNCOMFORTABLE, GO AHEAD AND SKIP IT.**

  

It’s not that Sam doesn’t know.  He just likes to pretend that he doesn’t know.

When Jess had slept with other men, he hadn’t liked thinking about it - and it wasn’t even the idea of Jess and the guy from her philosophy class sleeping together that had bothered him.  It was how broken and useless he’d felt.  Once he found ‘asexual’ and read up on it, the confusion had slowly melted away into acceptance and understanding, but understanding himself doesn’t mean he doesn’t still feel the pangs of guilt in his gut.

Sam knows damn well that Gabriel gets himself off all on his own, despite having a steady boyfriend, and he feels the way Gabriel tilts his hips away when they’re making out, trying to hide his arousal.  Sam doesn’t know how to tell him ‘It’s okay, I’m not offended by feeling your dick through your jeans.’  He knows it’s something he shouldn’t have to worry about, but he can’t help it.  He worries about it.  He worries about Gabriel having to give up something he enjoys just to be with Sam.

Sam knows Gabriel’s not going to leave him, and that Gabriel has no interest in being with anyone else.  But he’s always careful about not pushing Sam’s boundaries, so he’s never going to ask for anything sexual, either - and Sam doesn’t know how to offer.  All those building feelings of apprehension and guilt are starting to make it so that simply cuddling up on the couch creates a knot in his stomach.  Maybe the fact that Gabriel isn’t going to leave him is the worst part.

He hadn’t realized how often he’d been declining to stay over recently until Gabriel confronts him about it.  It's early April and Sam’s made up another lame excuse for why he needs to go sleep at home, and Gabriel catches his arm before he can get off the couch and get his coat.

“Everything doing okay, Sam?”

“What?  Yeah, everything’s fine,” he fibs.

Gabriel fidgets.  “This is the fourth time this week I’ve offered and then you’ve gone home.”

Sam frowns, thinking back.  He hadn’t slept over since the weekend before last, now that he thinks about it, which is stupid, because he loves sleeping over.  He loves sharing Gabriel’s big bed and watching Gabriel hit snooze four or five times and swear sleepily under his breath.  He loves making breakfast in Gabriel’s kitchen instead of his own cramped one, and he loves walking the dogs in the morning.  He loves warm breath on his neck whenever Gabriel gets cold and shifts closer.

That hasn’t happened much recently.  Gabriel has started keeping to himself.

“If you don’t like sleeping next to me, that’s okay-” Gabriel sounds like it’s really not okay in his book but he’s going to make it okay for Sam’s sake- “but just tell me.  Please.”

“No,” Sam protests, “I love sleeping next to you.  Seriously, that first time was one of the best nights of my life.  I just…” Sam shifts, sits silent, unable to explain his feelings.

“Does bed sharing make you uncomfortable?  Because I can sleep further away-”

“No no, that’s- that’s the opposite of what I want, I want to be closer to you, but…” Sam sighs.  He doesn’t know if he can explain what he feels and why he feels it, but Gabriel deserves an attempt.  “I feel guilty.”

“For getting close?  Explain that a little further, kiddo, I’m not seeing the light.”

“You’re attracted to me,” Sam blurts out.  “Sexually.  And I can’t reciprocate that.”

“No one’s asking you to.”  Gabriel takes Sam’s hand and gently uncurls the fist he’s starting to make.  “I don’t care that you don’t want me that way, I care about what you do want.  It’s not about what I can get, it’s about our overlap.”  He laces his fingers with Sam’s.  “You gotta give shit up to be happy sometimes, Sambo.  And I’m perfectly okay never getting laid again.”

Sam draws a soft breath in and out of his lungs before continuing.  “So this is a forever thing.”

“I’d like this to be a forever thing,” Gabriel responds, still trailing light touches over Sam’s palm.

Sam tugs his hand free and wraps his arm around Gabriel’s shoulders, pulling him off balance so his head ends up against Sam’s shoulder.  “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“I’m perfectly happy with the way things are.  But if you need less physical-”

“More,” Sam bursts out.  “I want to be close to you.  I sometimes wish more than anything that I could just have sex with you like a normal human being.  And I know nothing is wrong with me, but I just want you.  I want every part of you but my stupid body or- or my brain, I don’t even know- isn’t getting that message.  I-” Sam can feel a lump in his throat.  “I want to love you.  And I want to stop feeling like I’m not doing what I should be doing.”

“Sam, this isn’t a should, shouldn’t situation.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be jerking off alone like it’s some kind of secret.”

Gabriel scowls.  “It’s not a secret, it’s just not something I thought you even cared about.”

“But I do.”  Sam sighs.  “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I want to be more intimate- but that’s not happening.  On my end, not yours.”

“Seems like a pretty simple solution, then.  There are a lot of intimate things we can do that aren’t sexual.  You know that, right?”  Gabriel sits up straight again, shifting to look Sam in the eye.  “You tell me what’s comfortable for you, and I’ll come up with a whole list of ‘em.”

“I don’t know.  I guess I’ll have to find out.”

“Oh yeah, _experiment_ with me, baby,” Gabriel says in a terrible, mockingly seductive voice, raising his eyebrows at Sam, who makes a face.

“Stop.”  He shoves Gabriel away playfully, but Gabriel only twists around to lay his head in Sam’s lap.

“I can’t, Sam, this is who I am.  Tragic, isn’t it?”

“I’ll say.”  They’re quiet.

Gabriel’s eyes slide closed.  “Honestly, though.  We’ll experiment with what you like, okay?  You want backrubs?  I give decent backrubs.”

“I know I liked- when I first came over, and you cooked for me, before I knew I was ace, you thought we were gonna have sex, and you kissed me.  Like, really kissed me.  And you haven’t really done it since then.  I’m not made of glass, you know.”

“I didn’t want to get too sexual.  A lot of aces don’t like anything in that vein.”

“Well, I do, so kiss away.  Seriously, anything above the waist is fair game.”

“Awesome.”  Gabriel reaches over and runs a hand down Sam’s chest just to exercise his new privileges.

“You don’t have to hide it every time you get hard when we’re making out, either.  I promise it doesn’t bother me.”  Sam runs his hands through Gabriel’s hair, mussing it, combing the strands out against his thigh and the couch cushion.  “You could get off right next to me and it wouldn’t bother me.”

Gabriel’s eyes snap open and look up at him, questioning.  “You’re sure?”

“Dead sure.  Hell, I… I wouldn’t mind getting you off myself.”

“I don’t want to pressure you.”

“I want to.  Touching you is something I like.”

“You haven’t even seen me naked.”  Gabriel laughs a little, as though somehow the idea of Sam skipping the crucial naked stage of things is going to put him off.

“So we change that.”  Without waiting for further invitation, Sam slides one hand up the side of his boyfriend’s shirt, trying to work it off.

Gabriel sits bolt upright and squirms away.  “Whoa, hey, we’re still in the living room-”

“Blinds are closed.”  Sam looks back at him pleadingly, shifting to sit upright and get a better look. They haven’t done much exploring yet.  Sam sleeps in his boxers, and he’s seen glimpses of Gabriel’s beautifully tattooed back when he changes, but suddenly Sam is eager to see everything.

Gabriel huffs, rolls his eyes, but pulls his shirt off obligingly, dropping it to the carpet.  Gabriel’s arms have migrated again, instinctively, to cover his stomach, but Sam pushes them aside, impatient to see the ink underneath.  “You have another tattoo,” Sam murmurs, fighting the urge to reach out and trace his fingers over the intricate scrollwork cascading down Gabriel’s ribs and almost reaching  his hip.  “Is it Norse?”

“Mmm hmm.  I got it maybe ten years ago?  It’s not the last one, though.  Keep looking.”

“I’ve already seen the wings,”  Sam smiles, then notices the pale pink line on Gabriel’s chest.  “That one’s a scar.”

“Got it falling out of a treehouse as a little kid,” Gabriel says almost proudly.  “I fractured my arm, and that healed up fine, but a branch caught me and dug in deep on the way down.”

Sam leans in closer.  “Can I touch it?”  Gabriel nods, and Sam closes the space between them and softly rests his lips on the shiny pink skin.  Gabriel lets out a breath, almost as if he’s relieved Sam has accepted him.  Sam pulls back after a second, and moves upward to the soft ridge of Gabriel’s collar bone and kisses there, too.

“You have no idea how beautiful I find you,” Sam says softly as he moves his lips upward again.  His hands move down over Gabriel’s sides, feeling the soft skin over his taut muscles, the tiny light hairs, and the occasional raised freckle.  “I mean, I don’t feel attracted to you, not sexually, but I just _want_ you, you know?”

He can feel the soft start of a laugh in Gabriel’s throat.  “Can’t say I do, kiddo, but I’m glad you like what you see.”

“Get more naked,” Sam orders abruptly, his hands hitting the top of his boyfriend’s jeans.

“You’re bossy for a guy who doesn’t even want to get in my pants.”  Gabriel shifts out of Sam’s reach, but kicks off his shoes obligingly, then pulls off his socks and starts working at his belt buckle.

“Maybe we should move this to your bed?” Sam asks.  “I’m not exactly an expert, but I think not falling off the couch and being joined by a dog would make this whole thing more fun.”

“God yes.  The last thing you want is to be naked with a dog.  Their nails hurt like a bitch.”  Gabriel pauses.  “Are you sure about this?”

“Very.  I’ll carry you to bed, if you want.”

“Sam, you spoil me.”  He grabs his shoes with one hand and wraps the other around Sam’s shoulders, letting Sam scoop up his legs easily.

“The shoes are a romantic touch,” Sam comments dryly.

“Buck chews shoes if I leave ‘em unattended.  Give me a break.”

“I see where your priorities lie,” Sam teases, starting down the hall.

“Yeah, my dog not choking is more important than sex.  I’m a monster.”  Gabriel drops his head against Sam’s chest.  “God, who’s gonna carry me to bed when you’re in Cali this summer, huh?”

“You’re just gonna have to carry yourself.”  They've reached the bedroom, and Gabriel drops the shoes as Sam closes the door with an elbow.  Sam doesn’t put him down until they reach the bed, though, and then crawls on with him.

“You gonna skype call me when I’m carrying myself to bed?”

“Every night,” Sam promises.  “Now finish stripping.  I have an idea.”  Gabriel pulls his belt off, squirms out of his jeans, and drops them both over the edge of the bed.   Sam watches, absent-mindedly untying and tugging off his own shoes at the same time.

Sam throws his shirt aside, and Gabriel pauses, hand on the waistband of his own boxers, too distracted to go further.  “I hate to rub in the attraction thing again, but…” Gabriel lets out a low whistle, gazing almost hungrily at Sam’s bare skin.   Sam decides to indulge him.  He toes off his socks and lays back on the bed, undoing his jeans with one hand.  From there, he stretches both arms over his head, showing off, and he works his jeans off with as many slow rolls of his hips as he can.

Once they slide off his feet and drop to the floor, he finally turns his head to look at Gabriel.  “Did I break you?” he asks with a triumphant grin, sliding his hand lazily back up his own chest and smoothing down his hair.  Gabriel is practically frozen in place, eyes wide and lit with desire, mouth hanging slightly open as though he wants to speak but can’t find exactly what he wants to say.  With only his boxers on, it’s obvious he’s already halfway hard.

Sam rolls over.  “Come on, let’s do this.  On your back, spread your legs.  Aren’t you supposed to be naked by now?”

Gabriel snaps out of his haze and grins.  “Sir yes sir,” he huffs out as he rolls to his back and slides his boxers off.  Sam doesn’t even pause for a good look at him, just crawls between Gabriel’s legs so that they’re nearly chest to chest, and kisses him.  Gabriel kisses like it’s that time in the kitchen all over again, needy and passionate and _happy_.  Sam shares that sentiment.

“I’m not gonna crush you, am I?” Sam breathes, pulling away and moving to mouth at Gabriel’s earlobe.

“You’re perfectly fine.  You can put more weight on me- mmm.”  Gabriel trails off into a series of blissful sounds as Sam lays on top of him, brings his arms around to hold Gabriel close as he presses his mouth to the soft skin under Gabriel’s ear.  Sam can feel Gabriel’s cock pressed between them now, and while it’s a new sensation, it doesn’t bother him the way Gabriel seemed to think it would.  He can feel Gabriel’s pulse, racing with excitement, and the warmth of Gabriel’s back, and the pressure of Gabriel’s knees on his hips, too.  They aren’t very different, in his mind.

Sam rolls his hips, moving his skin against Gabriel’s, who lets out a tiny moan of “Fuck yeah, Sam, feels good,” which Sam takes as green light to do it again.  He inches his whole body downwards a little, one arm still around Gabriel, cradling him, and latches onto a spot on his neck to tease with his lips and teeth before he starts moving faster, getting the hang of how to angle himself.  When he finally pulls back, taking his own weight on his arms, the whole side of Gabriel’s neck is reddened - Sam may have gotten a little too excited - and Gabriel is breathing hard, his face the picture of bliss and excitement and arousal.

“How am I doing so far?”  Sam asks, smiling a little when Gabriel hums happily instead of responding. “I honestly have no idea how close you are, so…”

“Mmm, a ways.”  Gabriel props himself up on his elbows.  “Do you get yourself off at all?”

“Not often,” Sam responds.  “At first I was curious, but now it’s just a once in a while frustration thing.”

“A handjob is kinda like jacking off- if you still wanna do this?”

“Yes.”  Sam doesn’t hesitate at all.

“And you’re not doing this to be normal, or to fix yourself?  You promise?”

Sam leans down and kisses him again, this time soft and loving.  “I promise.  I want to do this.”  He settles himself back onto his knees, finally seeing all of Gabriel for the first time.

If there was any doubt in his mind that he was ace, it’s gone now.  He likes Gabriel’s body, but it’s definitely not doing anything for him below the belt.  He’s pretty sure most people enjoy seeing their boyfriend like this, spread out in front of them naked and willing, but… Sam kinda just wants to kiss him again.  He could just make out like this for ages, skin against skin, sprawled out on the sheets, touching and kissing and not going any further.  Tonight, though, they’re going further.  And he doesn’t mind it.

Not letting himself take too long on his self-realization, Sam gently rests his left hand on the inside of Gabriel’s leg, teasing his way gently from mid-thigh to groin and back just before he gets to anything good.  Gabriel groans above him - good sign.  There’s a lot of other places he knows he can touch, but for this first time, he wants to keep things simple.  While his left hand is occupied, he uses his right to drag one fingertip gently over the head of Gabriel’s cock, relishing in the loudest whine he’s gotten yet.  Gabriel’s hips jerk up towards him, and his fingernails scrape against Gabriel’s thigh, but Gabriel doesn’t seem to mind.

“God, you’re a teaser,” Gabriel gets out.  “Gonna just torture me like that all night?”  His fingers dig into the sheets.

“I could,” Sam contemplates, tracing his finger down the full length and back up again.  That’s not as good of a reaction, but it makes his point nicely.  He’s starting to like this whole ‘being in control’ thing.  “But I’m kind of a novice at this, so I think I’ll start simple.”  Sam wraps his hand around Gabriel’s cock, easily fitting it in his palm.  He doesn’t exactly have a lot of reference, but he knows he’s bigger than Gabriel.  It’s different, touching someone else - the angle of his wrist, the ridges under his fingertips.

“God, your hands are big,” Gabriel says breathily, rolling his hips up in an effortless search for friction. “Such nice hands on me-” he lets out another soft noise as Sam tightens his fist a little, letting Gabriel thrust into it shallowly.

Taking the cue, Sam moves his left hand up to Gabriel’s ribs, stroking his side maddeningly slowly, starting to move his other hand at the same speed.  He’d been worried about lube, but Gabriel’s also a lot wetter than he is, apparently, since there’s enough pre-come for him to slide his hand easily.

Sam sets a steady, faster pace then, Gabriel letting out a “God yes” and rolling his hips with every slide of Sam’s hand, and Sam suddenly finds himself in a weird moment of depersonalization.  Here he is, giving another dude a handjob.  That’s definitely not something he foresaw in his future.  And while it’s not the most exciting thing he’s ever done, he’s _enjoying_ it.  He likes watching Gabriel’s face when he slides his thumb up to run over a vein, and he likes running his other hand over the raised lines of the tattoo on Gabriel’s ribs.  His right is getting slightly cramped, but he can tell Gabriel’s close now; there’s no mistaking the shaky jerks of his hips, the way he’s gone from actual words to choked out moans of Sam’s name.

Sam slides his left arm back under Gabriel’s body, pulling himself in close so he can kiss Gabriel’s neck again, soft this time, in  direct contrast to the fast, steady pumps of his hand.  Gabriel’s arms leave the sheets , coming up to cling to Sam’s torso like a lifeline. And then Gabriel tenses under him, and Sam loosens his fist as Gabriel gasps his name and comes between them, hot and sticky.  Sam  doesn’t roll away or sit up for a good few minutes, preferring to work his hand free and just enjoy Gabriel’s chest rising and falling beneath him.

“You doing okay?” Gabriel finally raises his head a little, hair not nearly mussed enough.  Sam files that away for next time.

“You’re the one who just came.”

“Yeah, but this is your first time touching me.”  Gabriel raises a hand and strokes it softly through Sam’s hair.  “I don’t want you to feel icky.”

“I mean, I’m definitely gonna go get something to clean us up once you let me go.”

“Sorry.  But I meant inside your head.  Head doing okay?”  Sam nods, and Gabriel stops clinging, and Sam pushes himself up and pads to the bathroom for a washrag.  He doesn’t feel ‘icky’ the way he used to when Ruby touched him.  He just feels content.  A little satisfied but a little tired.  He wipes them both down and then squirms under the covers, where he’s immediately greeted by a clingy boyfriend.

“Is this afterglow, or are you cold?” Sam asks with a teasing smile.

“Bit of both.  But I have you, so…”  He presses his head sleepily against Sam’s shoulder, eyes sliding closed.  “You’re amazing, Sam.”

“Gonna go to sleep now?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’ll make omelets tomorrow?” Sam asks.

“Yep.”

“Do you want me to shut up so you can sleep?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Goodnight, Gabriel.”  Sam is the luckiest man in the world.

 

* * *

**_Three and a half years later._ **

They stumble into Gabriel’s apartment - their apartment, really - at eleven at night on a Saturday in October, in a fit of laughter and half formed jokes that they’ve been laughing at already for the past half hour.  “Constant viligence,” Sam croaks out again, and Gabriel swats at him playfully.

“It was one time.”  Both dogs are dancing eagerly around their feet.

“I know.”  Sam pulls himself together enough to set his keys on the table in the entryway before kicking off his shoes.  “Wait, shit, want me to take the dogs out?”

“I’ll do it.  You get started on your schmancy paperwork.”

“I’m gonna do that tomorrow,” Sam decides.  “I want to talk to you about something when you get back.”

Gabriel’s already picked up Carly, whose arthritic legs can’t make it down the apartment stairs anymore, but he pauses in clipping the leash on Buck.  “Is this a serious talk?”

“It is.  Nothing bad, just… some important life stuff, you know?  Go on.”  Sam kisses the side of Gabriel’s head as he stands up, then starts toward the living room, tripping over his own feet and catching himself without incident.

“Alright there?” Gabriel asks, only just restraining his laughter.  Sam makes a face over his shoulder as Gabriel tugs Bucky out the apartment door, then settles down on the couch and waits.

The painting still hangs in the living room, although they’ve moved it a few times and it’s now across from the doorway. A lot has changed in the few years since they’d first hung it up. Dean had moved back to Kansas, but not to be with the family. His long distance relationship with 'someone he met online' was now a live-in one with a guy named Castiel, who apparently made Dean very happy. Garth had eloped with a whirlwind of a woman named Bess, but he's settled back down in Salem, and Benny is happily living in Portland. Amy had given birth to a boy, but she has another on the way now, and high hopes that she'll have a daughter. Sam's hair is longer. He has a tattoo, a tiny 'A' on his hip that Gabriel had talked him into getting. He works as a paralegal halfway across the city. The apartment has been painted and repainted, and the furniture has been rearranged, but the painting remains the same, and Sam still loses himself in the speckles of paint that make up the universe. Nothing else in the apartment means as much to him as this gorgeous memento of when he and Gabriel got together for good.  It reminds him of how much they’d both had to overcome to be together, and how much happier and better off they were for it.  Hopefully, they can only get better from here.

“So I was thinking, after this,” Sam says as Gabriel returns from outside and slides onto the couch next to him, “we take a shower-”

“ _We_ take a shower, huh?”

“Yup.”  Sam pulls Gabriel in closer so the older man’s head is resting against his chest.  “I’ll give you a reach-around and wash your hair...”

“Okay, now I know you’re trying to bribe me,” Gabriel accuses, sitting up straighter to look Sam in the eye.  “I know you, Winchester, and the innocent card isn’t gonna work.”

“What?  I can’t just offer-”

“You are every bit as conniving and possessive as I am.  Hell, maybe more so.  This isn’t just serious talk, this is waaaay serious talk.”

“How am I possessive?” Sam protests.

“How are you-” Gabriel sputters.  “You dragged me into a bar bathroom and jerked me off because a nice lady asked for my number!”

Sam grins.  “Right.  Don’t know how I forgot that, really.”

Smiling despite his best efforts to remain indignant, Gabriel crawls back into Sam’s embrace and leans against him, making himself comfortable.  “Whatever.   Just talk to me.”

“Okay, I sent out my résumé to this service that forwards it to about a hundred firms, all over the country, and get this- eight replies already.”

“By replies, you mean job offers.”

“Yeah.  I’d be with a legitimate firm, actually working as a lawyer.”

“Okay.”  Gabriel’s quiet for a moment.  “Any of ‘em sound good, Sammitch?”

“That’s what I needed to ask you about.  One of them is for a place not far from here.  We’re talking forty-five minute commute.  Decent pay, too.”

“And you’re thinking about taking it.”

“Sort of.”

“There’s a ‘but’ to this statement.”  Gabriel untangles himself for a minute to lift Carly onto the couch.

“I got another offer from a firm that specializes in abuse cases; it sounds like exactly what I want to do.  And they’re offering me nearly six figures to start.”

Gabriel whistles.  “They want you bad.”

“They do.  The only problem is, they’re based in Post Falls, Idaho.”

“Oh.”  Gabriel has dropped the easy smile now.

“Yeah.  It’s up in the pointy part, about thirty thousand people.  And it’s a solid six hour drive away from here.  I’d have to move up if I wanted the job.”

“I can’t do long distance full time, Sam,” Gabriel says slowly, shaking his head.  “That summer a few years ago was torture.”

Sam shrugs.  “It wasn’t terrible, but then again I was working my ass off that summer, so not a lot of time to bemoan my fate.  But look, long distance is pretty much out, so either we stay here….”

“It seems pretty cut and dry, then.  The close-by offer sounds like the one.”

“Or we both move to Post Falls.”

Gabriel is quiet, which is saying something.

“Think it over, would you?  I know you’d have to quit at the school, but we could get a house with this salary, have a yard- a pool even!”  Sam’s been sitting on the idea for the past few days, and the multitude of ideas he’d generated are tumbling out.  “Think about all the space we’d have, and all the trips we could go on.  I mean, I know the top of Idaho is a bit out of the way, but I could afford travel and days off once I get settled in.  We could come back here to visit, or even swing down to Portland for a weekend.”

Gabriel’s still frowning, almost with confusion.  “What would I do?”

“What?”

“If I quit at the school to move up there.  What would I do all day?”

Sam pauses and chews his lip. He’d definitely had an idea of what Gabriel could do, but he doesn’t know how Gabriel will react to it.  It’s a touchy subject, and he doesn’t want his boyfriend thinking he needs to be improved.  “You could find a new job, I guess.”

Gabriel leans back to look him in the eye.  “Out with it Samson, you had something specific in mind.”

“You could go back to your art,” Sam blurts. The words hang in the air between them, and Gabriel is expressionless.  “And don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not trying to say you have to, or that what you do right now isn’t important, just… you have so many half-finished ones, and no real time to work on them, and you don’t have any way of selling right now. If you didn’t have a day job, you could really put in the time and effort that they deserve.”

“No day job…” Gabriel muses. “Where am I getting supply money without a day job?”

“Six.  Figures.” Sam catches Gabriel by the shoulders and just barely manages to not shake him in excitement. “I’d support you just fine while you worked on getting yourself established.”

Gabriel pulls a face. “I couldn’t make you-”

“Don’t you start with me. Remember _after_ that summer apart, when I didn’t have a job for a few months and I moped around your apartment during the day and ate all your food? Payback’s a bitch. You’d have to sit around our big fancy house and make art.”

“Am I allowed in the pool?” Gabriel asks lightly.

“I guess,” Sam says, smiling.  “But Post Falls also has a river with parks on the banks, and we’re half an hour from a waterpark, so I don’t know why you’d even need to use the pool at all.”

“God, you really researched this, huh?” Gabriel laughs, but it’s nervous laughter, giving away how unsure he really is.  Sam wraps an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and squeezes reassuringly.

“I mean, if doing a Google search during my lunch break counts.” Sam slowly untangles his legs from under himself, giving Gabriel another quick kiss on the cheek as he stands up. “Just think about it for me, okay? I kind of like the idea of a house, and space for the dogs to run-”

“Carly can’t run.”

“Who says we can’t get more?” Sam grins. “I’m gonna get in the shower. You can join me, if you want.”

Gabriel wrinkles his nose, making his new glasses shift a little. Sam loves the glasses with all his little asexual heart, and has frequently reassured Gabriel of this fact, especially when he refuses to put them on in the morning and squints his way through breakfast because ‘they make me look old, Sam, I don’t wanna.’ Right now, though, they’re about to come off, because Sam knows Gabriel can’t resist mutual showers in the evening.

Sam might be conniving. Just a little bit.

* * *

“If we got a house in Post Falls,” Sam mutters into Gabriel’s steam-damp hair and over the sound of the shower pattering on his back, “we could get one with a bigger, nicer shower.”

Gabriel flicks him with water. “Stop it. Aren’t you supposed to be jerking me off?”

* * *

 

Sam rolls over in bed and props himself up on an elbow. “I was thinking... if we moved to Idaho, we could get a nice big dog and he and Bucket could run around together.”

“Sam-”

“We could also get a hot tub.”

Gabriel gives him a surly look in the dark. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“Custom floorplan,” Sam whispers. Gabriel rolls over. “Walls painted whatever color you wanted.”

* * *

It isn’t until breakfast the next morning that Gabriel agrees to talk about it. “We’ll have to get more kitchen space.”

“Sorry?”

“In Post Falls. Bigger kitchen would be nice, I think.”

“So you’re on board with this?” Sam asks, beaming.

“Yeah.” Gabriel doesn’t look him in the eye, just keeps spreading jelly on his toast.

“If you’d really rather stay here, angel, you can tell me,” Sam says softly.

“I’m afraid of letting you down, okay?” Gabriel tells the toast. “If the art thing doesn’t work out…”

“Then you go back to just painting for fun, get a day job, and I still love you just as much.”

“I know.” Gabriel puts the butterknife down and sighs. “And I want to get a house with you. I just thought you should know.” He looks up at Sam, clearly trying his hardest to be open. “That I’m afraid.”

Sam reaches across the table’s edge to cradle Gabriel’s jaw and then kiss him. “Okay.” They’re quiet for a few minutes, listening to rain pattering on the kitchen window. “You picked me up four years ago,” Sam remarks.

Gabriel frowns. “Our anniversary is in January.”

“No, I mean… it’s that time of year when midterms would be right around the corner, and I fell over in the hall at Chemeketa when I was there looking for a book.  And you picked me up off the floor.  Four years ago.”

Gabriel’s eyes widen behind the frames. “Oh.”

“Crazy,” Sam adds, picking up his juice and downing half of it.

“Four years and you’re sweeping me off my feet to Idaho, huh?”

“That is the idea, yeah.” Sam smiles a little, suddenly remembering who he was back then. He’d been unsure of so many things, from his future career to his sexuality to if he wanted to move back home or stay out west, and that had  all solidified into who he was now. He’s not a disappointment. He’s a prosecuting attorney about to take a new position with a firm in Idaho. He’s asexual, and has happily accepted himself for it. God, if only he’d been able to tell past him that. Maybe life would have made more sense.

But hey, in a way, his lack of sense had led him to being picked off the floor by the love of his life. He glances over to where Gabriel, glasses sliding down his nose, is spreading a second flavor of jelly on the same piece of toast, with only some degree of success. Buck is watching intently from the third chair where they’ve told him repeatedly not to sit. There’s a wet, dull orange leaf stuck to the windowpane behind him. Thunder rumbles outside.

Sam wouldn’t change a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, here or at aleatoryw.tumblr.com~
> 
> Also, I'd like to point out that every single place that's mentioned in this story is a real place! From Willamette to Post Falls, you can find 'em all on google maps.


End file.
